[X][Mystery Girl] We should approach friendly, or at least non hostile. Talk a bit about what we are up to, and try to learn what shes up to. What she has been up to. And why she has Empire bothering her. We want to learn what her power is, and if we can trust her. Ideally we could get her on our side, in exchange for pay and or benefits. The issue is we need to make sure shes not going to go villainy. We know her face so I don't think we need to worry about an ID leak, but if we start taking hits because of her actions we have a problem. Even if we can't outright hire her or form a team, she may be willing to work with us on a case by case contractor basis. Of course, if she's some kind of villain or gang member we should nope the fuck out of there.
[X][Mystery Girl] Goals-figure out what gave you away, get a friendly contact on the parahuman side of BB (depending on how the meeting goes); Approach- friendly, but reserved. She thinks Taylor is a tinker, no reason to correct her that we are much more dangerous.
[X][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[X][Mana] Ice+Water>Crystal Quartz>Ice+Water>our own brain to enhance it.
-[X][Mana] (Thaum > Calcium Carbonate) + (Denature) > Plant > Bread > Silicon > Plant (transmute)
-[X][Mana] try using Thaum > Timeshift Crystal > Brain enhancement on our brain,
--[X]and if that works well create a circlet full of timeshift crystal dust that will dump a large dose of the mana into our brain.
-[X][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Timeshift Crystal)
-[X][Mana] Test mutating a sage plant and an aloe plant using Thaum > Kidney > Liver and Thaum > Kidney > Liver > Silicon
-[X][Mana] Using an insect, test the ability of a large dose of Thaum > Graphite > Copper to revert extreme whole-body mortal wounds if applied fast enough. This could potentially be the basis of an "extra life" device if it works.
-[X][Mana] test the result of using Skin Tone mana on a wound healed with blood mana.
-[X][Mana] try using Graviton Exchanger Mutation on a test plate of wood armor, to see if it'd let us make a much thicker armor withtoe it becoming to heavy, or even give an advantage to jumping.
Dad decided to keep his little pen holster out in the open when we went to the cafe, but I also stipulated that he should wait a bit before coming in.
"It would probably be a good idea for you to be parked outside, just in case. You can keep an eye on me through the window from here without intimidating her too much. I'll make sure to tell you everything we end up discussing, alright?" I ask.
Dad nods. "Smart. Just be careful not to agree to anything unless you're absolutely sure. We don't need to get caught up in anything illegal, even by mistake," he points out, to which I nod.
For now, at least, I've got no intentions of breaking any laws. It would be too risky for me and dad, and ruin my plans to turn a fair profit as well.
I hop out of the car, giving him one last glance before walking into the cafe. It looks like one of the cheaper ones around, and nobody was really inside at this hour. Nobody except the girl I'm here to meet, at least.
She immediately smirked when we made eye contact, and I noticed how her hair was tied up in a small bun, and her clothing was nothing especially out there, unlike when I saw her at the boardwalk.
I walk over and sit down as casually as I can manage.
"It's good to see you could make it. No clue why you brought the spare, though, all things considered," she says.
Annoyed at my dad being referred to as a "spare", I clenched my hands, prepared to retort.
"After all, you could probably kill everyone in this building handily enough on your own, huh?" she continues.
I'm completely stunned at this, more than long enough for her to keep talking.
"My name is Lisa, I'm a pretty strong thinker, and I've got a gig right now relieving old rich guys of their hard-earned money, and unlike you, I'm pretty good at covering my tracks."
"It's why we're here. The guys that run this place are smart enough to stay out of earshot for a few hundred bucks, and poor enough to not afford cameras, so we can speak a bit more freely. The reason I'm offering all of this is because you're one of those special kinds of capes, and I thought I'd do my due diligence and help you out," she explains.
"What do you mean? What kind of cape do you think I am?" I ask, firmly on the backfoot.
She winks at me. "The kind that make a really big mess when they get outed, and aren't very good at not getting outed," she explains.
"Now, let me just list off a few really general things, and you just jump in if I say something you think is wrong, alright?" she asks, not actually waiting for me to answer.
"You hate how things are going for you, and when you got your powers, you decided to put em to work. You've got an urge to tinker strong enough that you have to talk yourself out of going to scrapyards, and you don't bother to do your work outside of your home because you don't want to deal with securing a safe place to do it," she goes on, listing off fingers.
"You've got a million little ideas in your head, and about half of them would get you arrested or worse, and it's awfully hard to not dismiss those ideas outright when 'they might come in handy someday'. You don't really see a problem with using your power in public, or in civilian clothes, and you're literally tinkering under the table right now," she interjects smugly, shocking me out of my distraction.
I had just been doing a few mana tests that I felt like getting out of the way to help quell my nervousness, and she somehow even picked up on that.
"Yeah, when it comes to tinkering, you've got it bad, friend. And judging from your guilty expression, and a few other tells, you're not really as surprised as you should be that I figured you out too," she continues.
This Lisa is either a really strong thinker, or I'm... More obvious than I've been hoping. She seems utterly confident that she found out 'too', rather than just being the first.
"Why tell me all of this? What are you getting out of it?" I respond. From her explaining how she apparently "relieves" people of their money, it sounds like she's at least a criminal, if not an outright villain, and yet she's making a point of warning me about all the things I've been apparently doing wrong.
"Honestly? Not much. But you're too nice to end up on the 9:00 news after you end up getting caught in your civvies and have to use one of those clever ideas you've come up with to get a nasty threat rating slapped on you. I think plenty of parahumans would agree that holding back is something you do when you've still got something left to lose. And, wouldn't you know it, you do."
She slides over a hot coffee to me, one of the two that had been left ignored on the table, and gives me a half-sympathetic look.
"Keep holding back, alright? Even if you assume the worst of me, I want to keep shopping at the boardwalk, and I can't do that if you turn it into a smoldering wreck."
I ignore the coffee, trying to address what I actually wanted to talk about, before she laid out the death spiral I was apparently slipping into right before my eyes.
"A-are you a villain?" I ask, kicking myself mentally for how stupidly I worded it.
She snorts out loud at that. "No. No warrants or anything like that. Just white-collar stuff on the side. I don't even do it in spandex," she smiles. "I'm pretty good at covering my tracks, either way. Why, you need some advice on how to get started?" she says, giving me a mischievous smile.
"No! I just need to know because I can't work with you if it'll get me in trouble, sorry," I hastily explain, getting up and preparing to leave.
"Well, after you strike it rich, I'll be sure to keep my nose clean," she begins, only for something outside to wipe the smile off of her face.
My brow furrows. "Is something wrong, Lisa?" I ask.
She answers before really thinking about whether or not she should. "Yeah, see how all the traffic outside sped up? It's the middle of May, and a bunch of people in the higher end cars are hurrying to get home, the same kind that have the higher-end phones and browse the internet while they're waiting for the street lights to change," she begins.
"They all sped up a bit to get home faster after seeing something on their phone, or getting calls from someone else, something that near-universally triggered their desire to get home to their loved ones. One car just turned to the nearest liquor store, and that guy over there just made an expression like he saw news he's never happy to see, even though he sees it often," she says, pulling out her own phone to look something up on the cafe's wifi.
I dread whatever it is she's about to say, but when she says it, It's so much worse.
I jog over to the car and thump into the seat, dad giving me a concerned look. "What's wrong? Did she give you any problems?" he asks, but I shake my head mutely.
"Leviathan just started attacking Panama city, over in Florida," I respond.
[][Endbringer] It's none of my business. Let's just go home.
(Taylor will have a harder time justifying interaction with Endbringer Attacks in the future unless they personally affect her.)
[][Endbringer] I want to help.
-[][Endbringer] I have more healing powers than I can even name. I could help with triage and healing after the fight.
(Sage will be exposed as a healing cape/biological cape) (Unlocked due to Healing Magic Research)
(Massive Reputation Boost)
-[][Endbringer] I have a variety of Sensory and Mobility mana types. I could help with search and rescue after the fight.
(Sage will be exposed as a Grab-Bag/Trump.) (Unlocked due to high variety of different abilities)
-[][Endbringer] I have a variety of Synthesis and Transmutation Magics. I could create things to help after the fight.
(Sage will be exposed as a Tinker) (Unlocked due to Synthesis/Transmutation/Golemancy Mastery)
-[][Endbringer] (Write-In)
-[][Endbringer] I'm going to fight.
(Locked: Dad's Trust isn't high enough) (Locked: Sage is not a Hero) (Locked: Sage's resolve is too weak)
[][Endbringer] I will exploit the attack to serve my goals
(Locked: Dad's Trust isn't high enough) (Locked: Sage is not an S-Class Villain) (Locked: Sage's resolve is too weak)
Adhoc vote count started by Shadestyle on Feb 4, 2021 at 9:59 PM, finished with 16 posts and 16 votes.
[endbringer]
[X][Endbringer] I want to help.
-[X][Endbringer] I have more healing powers than I can even name. I could help with triage and healing after the fight.
[X][Endbringer] I want to help.
-[X][Endbringer] I have a variety of Sensory and Mobility mana types. I could help with search and rescue after the fight.
[x][endbringer] I have a feeling convincing Danny to let us go is going to be tough so try to emphasize how you are going to stay out of the fight and use your powers to heal. Maybe through in a line about how you have a responsibility to help now that you have the power to.
[x][endbringer] heal. remember most of your stuff stains skin warn people before hand and get a skin tone mana of their skin tone before you heal them.
[X][Endbringer] You were to late this time, but resolve to before the next attack nearby you will develop a weapon. That someone else can use while you're at a safe distance.
Armsmaster stood back as Leviathan washed away another building, almost an afterthought as it dodged between some of the slower, more dangerous attacks being thrown at it. Its head flashed to the right as one cape leapt straight at the monster, only to get smashed through several buildings by a casual slash.
"Slobberknocker down, DZ-13" his helmet helpfully points out in response.
Taking aim, Armsmaster fires his halberd's inbuilt pulse-drive, ripping up the building he was standing on a moment ago and allowing him to coast over the floodwaters below that had subsumed the coastal city. His armor's flaps adjusted midjump to keep the howling winds of the storm swirling around them from throwing him off course as he made his way closer to Leviathan.
One of the waves had managed to crash into a building being used as a rally point, sending another list of "down" callouts ringing through his helmet, and he landed on it only moments after the wave receeded.
He turned to face the beast, who was distracted by Alexandria and Legend, who seemingly had the monster momentarily pinned between ruthless punches and incredibly hot beams.
With a sweeping motion, Armsmaster fired his halberd's multi-line into the water, small Containment Foam pellets expanding at the ends as they clasped onto the drowning capes nearby, and allowing him to reel them up to himself.
Normally, he wouldn't have been playing a support role like this, but with needing to stress-test his new scanners that he based on some recent breakthroughs, he didn't trust them enough to get within critical range of Leviathan.
"Thanks, I thought I was a goner there," a lanky cape in a waterlogged turtleneck said, before vibrating the water off of himself and discorperating into a flying cloud of limbs that flew towards Leviathan. He recognized the individual, an Independent named Fuzzball who leaned towards the villainous side. The thought quickly faded though, as Leviathan turned its attention towards his building, only slightly damaged by Fuzzball landing on its face and ripping through several of its eyes in his cloud form.
Armsmaster quickly adjusted his halberd, unfolding the micro-rockets and blasting away as the monster charged straight towards the building, presumably to kill the capes on it who were firing off attacks of their own or escaping.
The building collapsed as the Endbringer smashed through it with all the presence of a sledgehammer through foam padding. His micromissiles had run out of fuel to keep him moving, so he fired them off, sending the small warheads crashing into Leviathan's leg where they exploded ineffectually.
Eidolon finally got into position shortly after that, however, seemingly working alongside another tinker to fire a blast of plasma at Leviathan that quickly began searing off the beast's flesh, pushing it back rapidly.
By now, only the tallest buildings were still above the water line, and in any fight against Leviathan, actually landing in the water was a fast way to die, which gave Armsmaster some pause as he only managed to crash through a window into one of the office buildings, missing his target of the roof entirely.
Thankfully, however, it seems he wouldn't be punished for that major blunder, as Leviathan was unwilling to take any more of the twin plasma streams, and slipped below the water without so much as a noise.
His eyes widened as the new scanners in his suit detected an increase to the viscosity of the water, and the tremors of the building he was in.
Leviathan was escaping, but not without a souvenir of their dark task.
"Leviathan is pulling the buildings, get everyone to higher ground immediately!" Armsmaster said into his communicator as fast as he could, marking the priority message for what it was. He knew there wasn't much higher ground to be had, but hopefully his warning would at least save a few capes from being mangled or washed out to sea when the buildings started coming down.
He ran, legs pumping with the assistance of micro-servos that he was pushing to their absolute limits, the skyscraper he was in was already tilting, already tipping over like a tree under the force of the receding water.
The thin walls of the office building he was in were no match for him crashing through them, but he detected a life-sign in the room to the right.
With a curse, he drove in his heels, skidding as he changed direction, carving through the door into one of the rooms that contained all the printers. Someone had somehow managed to get trapped under one of the machines during the evacuation.
The building was tipping faster and faster, water displacement causing a loud roar outside as the building shoved it aside through force of gravity.
He didn't bother giving the man any words of comfort, flicking his halberd's blade open wider and carving the entire machine in half, yanking the man to his feet and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
With a glance, he saw water rushing in, and realized that they were already below the waterline, already falling.
"Hold on," he mutters, pulling a grenade from his belt and throwing it at the wall, where it unfolded with a loud beep.
On his own belt, he pulled the pin from a containment foam grenade, hunching over the man as the detonation charge he placed on the wall blasted a hole in the building at the same time the foam grenade went off, encasing them both in the material.
His only hope at this stage was that the damage from the building collapsing and the grenade going off would be enough to dislodge the rubble that got stuck to the foam they were in. If there was too much weight, the expanding foam wouldn't be able to rise to the surface, and if the rubble didn't break free, they would both be trapped in the collapsed building until his distress signal went off.
One second, then two, with nothing but the sound of rushing water outside to confirm the passage of time, if one ignored his suite of HUD elements.
With a low creak, the floor broke, and the massive lump of containment foam rapidly began floating, rising up through the water at high speeds before breaching the surface.
He could tell that the man he had just saved was panicking, due to their rising heart rate, but they were just going to have to deal with it until Dragon or someone else could retrieve the foam and free them from it.
His GPS helpfully informed him that he had been washed out to sea along with most of the multi-story buildings in Panama City. It would be at least an hour before he could be retrieved, unless he was critically injured.
It was quite unfortunate that he wasn't, from a certain perspective, anyway.
"Armsmaster, are you alright?" Miss Militia said, opening a radio channel to him.
"Fine. Just indisposed. I'll need someone to come retrieve me, I'm with a civilian who failed to evacuate," he explains plainly.
"Right. I'll get someone to you as soon as we can, hang in there," Miss Militia explains.
He noticed a warm feeling trickling down his back, blood from the explosive he had set off. It must have caused more damage than he had expected. All in all, a fair trade for the sheer volume of telemetry he got during the Endbringer fight. Dragon would be pleased with this contribution to their modeling algorithms.
As the water washed out of Panama and revealed the devastation beneath, Eilodon found himself both pleased and annoyed. Pleased because this had been one of the lowest death tolls for capes of any Endbringer battle not involving Scion's intervention, but annoyed because of how little he felt he had contributed. He nearly ignored one of the tinkers trying to get his attention, but if he did, it likely would have increased the death toll further.
Instead, it seemed he would need to give them a personal congratulations at some point, considering what their work had managed to do, converting one of his higher-energy powers into a more dangerous form, the confusingly named "Cappy" apparently specialized in energy-converters, and had rudely demanded he use a matter creation power. He rarely used those due to their low combat potential, but this time, it seems it was worth the attempt.
They had set up some kind of device that used what he could tell was a minor power-altering effect to disrupt his matter creation, resulting in one of his strongest blasts to date. He wondered if Contessa had any plans for a power like that, but disregarded it immediately afterward. If there was one thing he hated more than being useless, it was someone else picking up his slack.
As the various capes were being gathered up to organize search and rescue efforts, or just sending the ones that were only here for combat home, he casually switched to powers more suited to trying to find any leftover survivors. It might not have been the worst fight on the cape side, but he doubted there would be many civilian survivors in the city, considering Leviathan's last act before leaving. He would need to search the ocean quickly, if any of the especially lucky ones were to be found before it was too late.
Switching his powers to Heat Detection, Physical Deconstruction, and Cellular Energy Production, he dove into the water, eager to do more heroic actions while he still had the opportunity.
He barely paid any mind to the batch of new capes that were teleported in, among which was an awkward short one in blue armor, looking out of place among the devastation. One who, only hours before, was fighting tooth and nail just to get here.
"I want to help," I start, instantly prompting dad to respond, shaking his head firmly.
"Absolutely not, I'm not letting you go in there and get yourself killed, Taylor," he says, a bit desperately.
I quickly elaborate before he can dig in further. "I'm not going to fight. I want to help after the battle. I've got more forms of healing magic than I can even name, I know I can save lives, please don't try to make me stay here," I beg, knowing that no matter what he says, I'll be going.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 4, 13
For a brief moment, dad's eyes narrow, before finally, he lets out a sigh.
"You shouldn't have bothered asking me, Taylor. I can see you're going to go no matter what I say," he says, disappointed.
I flinch at this. He's right, but to lay it out so plainly still hurt to hear.
"Fine. Let's go," he says, starting the car and starting towards the PRT building.
He didn't seem angry or disappointed anymore, as the drive went on, but I could tell that we weren't going because he allowed me to. I had pushed him into this.
Swallowing my guilt at using him like this, I got out without saying a word, marching inside so I could be directed to wherever I would need to go to be brought in with the others to help with cleanup.
It didn't take long. I was numbly escorted to The Rig, where only a few heroes were there, Velocity among them, as well as Vista and a few of the wards.
"Who are you?" the young heroine asked. I frowned a bit under my helmet, but I guess it made sense. I hadn't made a single appearance in any real capacity as a cape, and my only contact with the PRT was one obscure meeting. Not exactly much to recognize me by.
"Sage. I've got healing powers," I respond simply, still a bit stunned by dad not putting up as much of a fuss as he could about me going to do this thing.
"Well, if you haven't done this before, we're waiting on a teleporter right now. Normally it only takes a few minutes, but if one doesn't show up in half an hour, we'll be taking a shuttle. Alright?" Vista explains helpfully.
"Thanks," I offer, noticing Gallant in the corner of the room looking at me. I wonder if he told anyone about me. I found out during some of my research what he looked like, and made the connection to him being a part of the meeting I was in. Some kind of emotion-tinker.
"So what exactly are your powers? Healing is pretty rare," Velocity butts in, and the rest of the wards look curious as well.
I just shrug, giving a non-answer. "I can make and track healing energy," I say. Simple, clean, and not breaking away from stuff I said earlier too much.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 8, 3
"Well, it's good to have you here, Sage. I have to warn you, the tents are pretty bad, so I hope you're ready for that," he says. I'm tempted to ask what he means by the tents, when a large rock appears in the middle of the room, covered with weird crystalline growths.
Before anyone can panic, Velocity raises a hand. "Waystone's work. Looks like he's the one who ended up taking care of us. Everyone place your hand on the rock. If you aren't touching it when it goes off, you'll be left behind," he explains, having apparently worked with this individual before.
With a shrug, I lay my palm on it along with everyone else, causing little red lasers to point at us from all over the small boulder.
It beeps three times, and then our surroundings are completely different, and we're immediately flagged over by a PRT trooper with a tablet in hand, and guided away from the Waystone, which is now being looked over by a rotund man covered with Mardi-gras beads and other glassy baubles, a tuning fork covered with wires and tech being used to smack it over and over.
"If you're here to help with search-and-rescue, please come with me, if you have any special skills, please tell me now and I'll direct you to the appropriate area," he explains dryly.
I raise my hand a bit meekly. "I'm a healer," I say, instantly drawing the man's eye.
"Head to the tents thataway. Dr. Mary Brucel will tell you what to do, if Panacea isn't available" he dismisses me with a gesture.
Feeling out of place, I walk along the beach that we arrived on, struck dumb by just how destroyed everything is. The city looks like someone dragged a hand through a wet sandbox, pulling everything out into the tide. Buildings lay on their sides being lapped at by the ocean, clear trails under them stretching out as far as the other side of the city, among the buildings that weren't simply reduced to shards and rubble.
As I made my way to the tents that the PRT trooper pointed out though, it got so much worse, with a practical mountain of bodies spread out over hundreds of medical tents, some already being intubated due to the water in their lungs, while others were mangled and destroyed during the fighting.
I choked on my own spit for a moment, the smell of metal and saltwater heavy in the air intermingling with blood and other, worse scents.
I saw Panacea, briefly touching people just barely enough to stabilize them before moving on, and approached her, prepared to try and help as much as I could.
She almost ignored me, until I finally managed to get her attention.
"I'm a healer, where do you need me?" I ask, following her as she taps a man with a missing lower-body, sealing off all the blood vessels that weren't before jogging ahead to someone else.
"Where the fuck don't I need you? I don't care, just start healing for fuck's sake. Focus on the worst first," she barks out, already done with me.
I feel terror, knowing that so many lives are now depending on me for survival and recovery.
Flagging down the nearest doctor, since I had no clue who Dr. Mary Brucel was, I try to slap together some kind of plan.
[][Healing] Write In Plan
-[][Healing] Blacklist. You'll use everything at your disposal except for a few things even you aren't willing to put to use. Write-in magics that you do not want to use during this event, in addition to your plan.
-[][Healing] Whitelist. You will ONLY use a small set of magics that you trust. Write-in magics that you are willing to use as-needed during this event, in addition to your plan.
Keep in mind that the more types of magic you allow to be used for their niche applications, the more effective you will be, and the less superfluous magic you use, the more power you will have left over for other things.
Adhoc vote count started by Shadestyle on Feb 5, 2021 at 8:14 PM, finished with 17 posts and 8 votes.
[healing]
[X][Healing] First priority is saving lives; get a doctor or nurse to help you prioritize. Ideally, explain your healing capabilities (and the major side effects) to the nurse while you help stabilize the worst patients. Focus on using weaker spells, endurance will be more important than healing people fully for the immediate future. Don't worry about aesthetics until people are no longer in danger of immediately dying. If you have energy left over, then you can take the time going around to try and remove the side effects of healing magic.
-[X][Healing] Blacklist: Any healing spells that cause permanent side effects besides attunement chains composed of diamond, graphite, blood and plant.
[X][Healing] Write In Plan
-[X][Healing] Whitelist. You will ONLY use a small set of magics that you trust. Write-in magics that you are willing to use as-needed during this event, in addition to your plan.
[X][Healing] Write In Plan: ONLY saving lives matters. This is not the time for caution, hesitation, or caring for future consequence. We need to thinking bigger than giving personalized treatments one at a time. For that, we need lots of mana, and to get that mana we need dust, in larger amounts than we brought. What might we have in the immediate vicinity? There's lots of blood, water, sand, and splintered wood.
-[X][Healing] we should be able to use Clay Mana to transmute water into dust and burn that for arcane mana. Use that arcane mana to gather up the plentiful blood in the area, use clay and sand mana to turn that into blood dust. Then we use a HUGE amount of water dust to make arcane mana, and a HUGE amount of blood dust to create blood mana, MIX them, and scream out all the pain we see around us in a single spell that burns everything we have. FUCK consequences and secrecy and holding back, this is BIGGER than us.
-[X][Healing] Arcane + blood (Screamed while crying and gesticulating wildly upwards and all around) "Blood and water, hear my plea,
[X][Healing]
-[X][Healing] Blacklist. ONLY saving lives matters. This is not the time for caution, hesitation, or caring for future consequence. So Blacklist. And that list is empty.
The doctor I flag down is much more helpful than Panacea, actually listening to me as I rattle off as much as I can about my power. Thoughts of secrecy mostly banished from my mind as I start explaining.
"I can make energy that changes in properties, and at least a hundred of the energy types I can make manipulate or regenerate biology with side effects, please help me use them, I've never done this before, and I don't know what is illegal, allowed, or effective, sir, and I don't know who to start with," I say quickly, and the doctor simply nods, leading me to someone missing a leg. They look incredibly pale, and are already unconscious.
"He's lost a lot of blood, he'll die of shock without more, his body need nutrients it can't get without more blood pressure," the doctor explains.
"I can heal him but the side effects increase blood vessel size," I say as quickly as I can, gathering up magic.
"Legal. Do it," he says, and I blast the man with some blood mana, sealing his leg shut a bit and bringing color back to his skin as the liquid mana temporarily fills up his drained veins.
The doctor brings me to the next person, who is being restrained by a brute with stone arms to keep him from thrashing with his own bladed limbs.
"Suffocation, there's too much water in his lungs and we can't get close enough," the doctor explains with practiced ease.
"I can selectively paralyze him, the energy intelligently targets safe areas to shock," I respond, already charging the platinum ring on my finger with mana.
"Do it," the doctor responds again.
"Vital Shock!" I yell, blasting the blade-armed parahuman.
Nurses descend on the cape, his eyes flicking around wildly as I'm shuffled off to someone else, wracking my brain for mana types that can heal each particular problem.
"The new skin will be green and photosynthetic," I say in response to the person with massive patches of missing skin, preparing Natural Life mana.
The doctor nods. "Do it"
"The arm will be more elastic and soft," I say in response to the person with a broken and mangled arm, preparing Diamond Magic.
"Do it"
"He'll be at higher risk of cancer," I say in response to the person covered with wounds and dying rapidly, preparing Egg Mana to make him regenerate more.
"Rejected"
"Alternative, I can heal him but it will overheat his body, he'll have burns," I say, dismissing the egg mana and switching to Coal Mana.
"Do it"
I nod, gritting my teeth as the man begins thrashing when I use the Greedy Healing magic, his own body's energy being consumed to heal some of his wounds.
Over and over, we move from person to person, my intuition telling me the best magic to use for each patient to use up the least amount of mana, and each time, the doctor at my side either approves or rejects the spell I weave.
I try using Arcane Mana to put together a spell, but there's not enough time, and the adrenaline has me stuttering, messing up my words as I try to put them together. Raw Healing Mana is the worst kind of healing, as far as I can tell, but it's just so fast and easy, compared to trying to shout poetry in front of a dying man to cobble together some improvised spellcraft.
It isn't cheap, though. Slowly, I feel exhaustion creeping in, but there's still so many more, and several are going from "noncritical" to "critical", the more time it takes me.
"We're going to lose people," I hiss, applying another blob of Diamond Mana to a man's open chest, just trying to force everything that fell out of him back inside.
"It happens, keep going as much as you feel you can," the doctor responds, hand on my shoulder.
An idea crosses my mind that I initially rejected. The side effects wouldn't be too horrible, and it would be the most efficient use of mana right now for quick and dirty healing. "I think I can do the rest before they die, but I need approval. I can biotinker healing creatures using inert biomass," I say, terrified for only a moment of what they'll say in response to that. The doctor freezes contemplative.
"Keep healing with what I approved so far, I'm calling someone for emergency authorization," he says, turning and running as fast as he can towards one of the PRT Troopers.
1d20 vs 1d20, 14, 15
I rewind a woman's skull a tiny bit, just enough to un-fracture it, as the doctor comes back with a collar.
He shoves it into my hand. "Explosive collar, they agreed on one, put the collar on whatever you make, it's only approved if it can't reproduce in any way," he says, and I nod.
He runs to get Panacea, and I turn to create a force-multiplier for my healing speed.
Normally, dust magic doesn't quite cut it for healing, but the stuff I create can feed on ambiance, so the idea was simple.
I fire a beam of magic at the beach, rapidly turning the sand into powder, and the powder into sand mana, and that sand mana into even more mana, before dragging it back to me and saturating the ambiance.
Then, I use Bio Magic, dragging together all the blood in the area from the numerous wounded people, as well as scraps of plant matter from the trees and grasses.
I mutter under my breath, an amalgam of words that had been running through my mind, poems that I had slapped together and discarded one after another. What I was muttering was the scraps, and I wasn't sure if they would do anything to the creature I was creating, but it felt right, various rhymes tumbling out of my mouth as I focused on shaping the monster.
The diamond magic I was weaving into it was meta, it was infusing the blood and plant matter with a vital force and a drive to heal others, rather than simply healing and revitalizing the mass itself. It didn't technically breach my mental list of 'things not to do' during this Endbringer fight, but I knew it was pushing it.
I didn't know what it was going to mutate into, intellectually, but I knew that my will, my mind and soul, they were shaping the results as much as my focus was.
The end result was a vivid cyan color, with features of an owl, a wooden mask and wings that had been embedded in a bright gelatin.
The brain in the center absorbed the collar, fastening it around itself to fulfil my wish of it being easy to kill if need be.
Panacea looked horrified as she was dragged over to confirm its sterility and safety, and only touched it with the utmost hesitance.
"It doesn't have any functional DNA. It'll be dead in twelve hours without whatever it is you're doing to keep it moving," Panacea whispers, before walking away back to the rest of the tents. She looked like she was halfway between vomiting and passing out, but I forced myself to ignore this.
"Owl, heal them," I demand, pointing towards the tents. My creation, about the size of a large dog, hesitated for only as long as it took to see the injured people with its giant glassy eyes, before its slimy body began churning towards them, rapidly absorbing the mana I had flooded the ambiance with to fuel itself.
I was ordered by a trooper to supervise it, but there wasn't much to supervise. My creation was cruder and faster than even raw mana, but it was fast.
Instead of channeling mana, it simply splattered itself over any injured areas, drying up into a pale brown paste as the magic animating it was exhausted to heal and repair whatever it fell on. I suspected that, without a proper examination by Panacea, they might be at risk of infection just from the stuff that was left inside them, but that was better than dying within the next few minutes.
I kept having to pull up more blood and grass to repair Owl as I moved, but the endless line of the wounded and dying shrank faster than it did, especially when I started using my own powers alongside it, eradicating more sand near the beach to fill the ambiance and using my own healing magic and willpower to assist and guide it to critical areas.
Despite being made from my own magic, it had the raw urge to enact life, which meant I had to forcefully move it away from people who were still injured, so we could move on to those who needed to be stabilized.
The sun set on the medical camp before Owl had reached its limits, even with my direction, its body and core too unstable from the amount of work I was pushing it through.
It looked at me blankly, and felt nothing that I wasn't feeling, before finally falling apart, two wooden wings and a mask collapsing to the ground as its gellid form returned to being a slurry of blood and chewed up grass.
As soon as it did, I heard a scream from one of the nearby patients, who had been staring up at the sky, seemingly half-asleep
He turned to face Panacea without warning, pulling a combat knife out of his pocket and charging straight at her, crawling out of the cot with a psychotic look in his eyes.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 11, 7
"Look out!" I shouted, legs already pumping to intercept him. I wasn't thinking about how I would stop him, but my magic came to bear anyway.
Platinum Magic shot out of my finger, attuned to the ring I was wearing. At what felt like the speed of light, the bright yellow ray smashed into the man, and he sparked all over in a way that normal electricity would never do.
Panacea fell back onto her rear, staring at her would-be assaulter and hyperventilating.
I hold out my hand. "Are you alright?" I ask, helping her up.
"Yeah. Thanks," she says, swallowing nervously.
I scratched my arm, getting nothing out of it through the wooden plates.
"Sorry about making you deal with the gelly," I responded, feeling lightheaded from all the stress and excitement of the past several hours.
She huffs at this. "Gelly? That's adorable," she mutters, clearly conflicted by the mass of magic and biomass having such a cute name.
I shrug. "Sorry. Seemed like the right name for it."
She just huffs again. "Right. Don't worry about it. It wasn't as gross as some of the stuff I've had to touch," she says.
I nod a bit, feeling a bit odd before some quirk of whatever hormones are pumping through my veins and the recent events finally coming together to make my eyes flutter shut.
I faint before I hit the ground.
Alexandria watched as the cape known as Sage was carried out on a stretcher. As a courtesy, they would be teleported back with the other Brockton Bay capes, of course. The remains of their creation were quarantined briefly, before Panacea apparently stepped in to contest their acquisition, on the grounds that the remaining biomass was completely inert without Sage's power supplying it.
Despite her relative youth, Panacea was more than willful and respected enough by now to get the wooden chunks sent back with Sage, rather than brought to the PRT for study, something that Alexandria respected somewhat as she watched the young girl glare down one of the commanders in charge of packing up the tents and supervising the remaining cleanup.
The two girls, both healers, seemed to have struck some sort of unspoken accord, even if they didn't fully realize it. All in all, a mixed bag of an Endbringer battle.
"Any idea why Leviathan was holding back?" Legend asks, walking up behind her.
"I don't think he was. This could be another point in favor of the Simurgh acting to coordinate the other two. Panacea's first placement in a position of seniority, and the arrival of a new healer, coinciding with the highest injuries we've had in years, and one of the Simurgh's bombs going off just in time to attack Panacea in cold blood?"
"That girl might not be ready to take anything close to a leadership role for years after this fight. If she decides it's too risky to visit future Endbringer battles, it could be disastrous, compared to the meager benefit of a low death-toll for one single fight," Alexandria retorts.
Legend just hums. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
'You're very good at 'hopefully', Legend,' Alexandria thought to herself.
'It's the rest of us who need to prepare for the worst,' she finishes, floating up and flying away from the ruins.
I woke up on a cot, yawning fitfully. Yesterday's events slowly filtered into my mind, and I felt mortified. I got so caught up trying to save people that I forgot to hold back, the longer I worked.
A brief pulse of shame runs through me at that. It wasn't that I forgot to hold back. It's that I realized I didn't care as much about keeping my powers a secret as I did saving as many people as possible.
"Ahh. You're awake," I hear someone say as the door slides open. Miss Milita walks in, and I sit up rapidly. Oh god, what was my dad going to think? I should have already been home by now.
"We didn't want to compromise your identity, so we brought you here after we knew you weren't in any danger. I hope that wasn't a problem?" she says in a kindly tone, and I shake my head.
"No, but I really should get home, please," I say, standing up and stumbling a bit before Miss Milita helps me steady myself.
"Just be careful out there. Panacea said you had symptoms of heatstroke, so try to rest for the next few days, alright?" she explains, helping me up.
"When you get some time, Sage, you should come talk with us, it isn't mandatory, but often enough, healers receive donations when they participate in Endbringer battles, and you have some very powerful people grateful to you right now," she says gently.
I swallow at this. Oh god, I blacked out in front of Panacea, healer numero uno, the big cheese of parahuman medics.
Oh god, I made Panacea sign off on a giant blob of blue snot that I biotinkered up.
"Right, I'll find some time to do that," I say, trying to ignore my thoughts running in circles.
"Thank you, for all your help yesterday. Rogues don't often step up to the plate like that," she says, prompting a warm fuzzy feeling that I tried to quash with the logic that, technically speaking, there weren't that many rogues in the first place.
Grabbing a small duffel bag that Miss Militia told me contained the remains of my first true monster, I left and started walking home.
The warm fuzzies from the heroine's praise follow me home, though, and when I open the door, dad lifts me up in a massive hug, babbling questions and demanding answers and explaining what little he managed to glean by watching the news and apparently talking to Lisa on the phone.
We talked until the sun set again, and I went to bed, giving reality more than enough time to set in. The reality that I did more good yesterday than I've probably done in my entire life. More good in a few hours than I had done in a whole decade before that.
I was stronger than I thought, but I'm also stronger than I was before.
Third week of May Plans:
[][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[][Daily Activities] Visit a location (Write-In Where you go and What you do there)
-[][Daily Activities] Spend time with dad.
-[][Daily Activities] Make contact with Lisa again (Write-in Plan)
-[][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
[][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[][Cape Activities] Visit a location (Write-In Where you go and What you do there)
-[][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones in prison.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones that escaped.
-[][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Write-In Plan)
-[][Cape Activities] Continue your magical training.
-[][Cape Activities] Go to the PRT to collect your donations (These can also be collected by establishing your Second Identity) (Can be done in addition to other actions)
-[][Cape Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
[][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[][Project] You created Owl, a so-called "Gelly" made of Blood and Plant Matter using Bio Mana. Could you refine this even further? If you got the legal approval to make another version of your healing monster, surely you could make it even better than before. (Write-In Plan)
-[][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (Write-In Plan)
-[][Project] Something Else (Write-In)
-[][Project] Alchemy consumes your mind. You'll discard a project this week. (If this vote wins, up to ten Write-in [][Alchemy] experiments will be processed this turn instead of one major project.)
[][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Phonem's effect (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Study a target for Phomens (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Transmutation (Choose an Elemental Ray and a Non-Silicate Target)
[][Mana] Something Else (Write-In)
29 Research Obtained.
Stats
Research: 59
A good start.
Overall Health: 13
You're a very small, but not squishy human.
Overall Magical Power: 10
You are a competent Channeler, using raw willpower and attuned mana to plow your way through problems.
You also dabble in Wizardry as well, to a lesser extent, and your overall magic leans towards Communion, the art of controlling nature, and Biomancy, the art of manipulating Life Vitae.
Abilities
Magical Soul: D
Rating: Trump ???
Your soul emits magic. The stronger your soul, the more powerful your magic. Your resolve to fend off the death of others at any cost has strengthened your soul.
Magical Body: E
Rating: ???
Your body contains some magic, your soul empowering your body without your direct intervention.
Magical Power: C
Rating: Trump ???
You are a parahuman with the power to create this anomalous energy known as "Mana", at will. Once per month, you may boost your Magical Power ranking to B for one scene.
Boosted for One Month.
Composition Detection: S
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to detect the exact composition of materials. So long as you apply mana to them, that is. Fairly Niche.
Eidetic Memory: A
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to never forget what mana attunements you have learned, their applications, and their nuances. You will also never forget any word or noise you test on mana, or the effects it has.
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[X][Daily Activities] Spend time with dad.
--[X] Try to clear the air about you going, emphasizing that you saved many lives including Panacea.
[X][Daily Activities] Make contact with Lisa again: Explain why you are not prepared to become a villain or do anything illegal, even indirectly by helping her do such things, and cant be seen publicly associating with her, but if she's willing to despite those conditions you can still be friends and you do really need someone to talk to and consider her advice valuable. Also just use her as a shoulder to lean on and talk your feelings out.
-[X][Daily Activities] Think out loud-ish while near Lisa: "Hmm, how would the PRT react if we said we realized we might be able to do "something really bad" with our power, and want their help limiting ourselves so we *cant* do it if we "get captured by a villain or something". Possibly adding that if they do that, they can leave an exception in their conditioning for doing it against endbringers only. For example; what if we take an iron pot, fill it with water, mix in (in decreasing order of amount and importance) silicon dust, Zinc dust, ethanol, and bone meal. Then put a huge bunch of mana into it, then onto this mana thats 90% arcane but with a smidge of silicon, chant: "kettle kettle boil and bubble, brew me up a pot of trouble, upon those by this concoction splashed, turn their hopes all into ash, curse them with eternal pain, all attempts to cure: in vain, Their screams sweet music to my ears, let all who touch them be in tears, a melting horror to behold, 'Beware' all who see them be told, None shall dare the ire of Sage, when I release this cursed plague", and while applying it back to targeting the water and stuff in the pot and mixing it with Thaum > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc ("Cursed One") mana. Then before it "sets" add a drop of blood. Stir thoroughly with a bone, then pour into a throwable bottle and seal it."
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Check in on Panacea. You have a rapport, she might be shaken by the assassination attempt, she might have advice on healing and it's pretty fucked up she's only making minimum wage.
-[X][Cape Activities] Go to the PRT to collect your donations (These can also be collected by establishing your Second Identity) (Can be done in addition to other actions)
[x][Cape activities] next time we see lisa ask If shes a criminal because she wants to be or if you offer her a legal job she would stop? if she asks you really would like a research assistant.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Go to the PRT to collect your donations (These can also be collected by establishing your Second Identity) (Can be done in addition to other actions)
-[X][Cape Activities] Try to meet up with Panacea. You did just establish yourself as a healer and she might have some advice on that front, plus it would be nice to make a friend on the parahuman side of things...
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (We will go directly to the government, and out ourselves to the trustworthy officials in charge of this exact thing. Simply have them quietly link our Sage Identity to our Real Identity. It's not like we plan on outright breaking laws anyways. Skirting and pushing them a bit with technically legal biotinkering? Absolutely. But we shouldn't have any major crimes planned. We can set things up, run by the PRT to collect donations, and move on with our plans.)
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Write-In Plan)
-[X][Cape Activities] Go to the PRT to collect your donations
--[X][Cape Activities] Ask what the rules are for GIVING donations, or items and weapons that can be used in the next endbringer fight even if you aren't there.
--[X][Cape Activities] Aks if there's some kind of contact that'd be suitable to explain WHY you aren't prepared to be a Hero or officially affiliating with anyone, so they can know in case there are any situations they SHOULD contact you for, in some informal non-binding arrangement. Also, just having someone you can safely talk to.
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (We will go directly to the government, and out ourselves to the trustworthy officials in charge of this exact thing. Simply have them quietly link our Sage Identity to our Real Identity. It's not like we plan on outright breaking laws anyways. Skirting and pushing them a bit with technically legal biotinkering? Absolutely. But we shouldn't have any major crimes planned. We can set things up, run by the PRT to collect donations, and move on with our plans.)
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Check in on Panacea. You have a rapport, she might be shaken by the assassination attempt, she might have advice on healing and it's pretty fucked up she's only making minimum wage.
-[X][Cape Activities] Try to meet up with Panacea. You did just establish yourself as a healer and she might have some advice on that front, plus it would be nice to make a friend on the parahuman side of things...
[x][Cape activities] if we do get in contact with panacea try and play up the magic Cape angle. she seemed kinda scared of us before so her thinking we're a bit goofy about magic should be fine right?
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (Study various stopping effects to try and derive more general spells. Triage Shock only paralyzes wounds and lightstop only freezes time for light. Try to figure out how to generalize those into stopping people.)
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (Try using controlled zinc magic (curse), sweat (amplification of living energy), salt (division between electrical signals?) and/or quartz (increased precision) to enhance Triage Shock into a general paralyzing spell.)
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (We will build a Staff that uses Egg mana, Gravity Control, And BioElectric Algae clouds, to let us create and control gravity and Bio Electric Algae clouds. Since our creations can't reproduce on their own, can't survive on their own, and even forcing them to divide using egg mana is a mostly active process that only works in our presence and/or the presence of the device, we technically aren't breaking any laws by doing this. The staff will have a hidden central rod made using Vampire Plant, as it is deeply tied with our will. Around this we will grow a staff of apple tree wood as a Nature Diplomat to control and bring all the parts of the staff together, lacing it with Cell-Recycling Management Biofibers, Graviton Exchanger Mutations, and BioElectric mutations.
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (We will build a Staff that uses Egg mana, Gravity Control, And BioElectric Algae clouds, to let us create and control gravity and Bio Electric Algae clouds. Since our creations can't reproduce on their own, can't survive on their own, and even forcing them to divide using egg mana is a mostly active process that only works in our presence and/or the presence of the device, we technically aren't breaking any laws by doing this.
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Your best shot at stopping someone attacking ended up being an uncontrolled blast of lightning. You should probably come up with a better self-defense tool than a knife and some glowing dust (We will build a Staff that uses Egg mana, Gravity Control, And BioElectric Algae clouds, to let us create and control gravity and Bio Electric Algae clouds. Since our creations can't reproduce on their own, can't survive on their own, and even forcing them to divide using egg mana is a mostly active process that only works in our presence and/or the presence of the device, we technically aren't breaking any laws by doing this.
--[X][Project] Shade, remember to read the further instructions in EndlesBlaze's post.
[X][Mana] Arcane "This curse I weave, cruel as can be/plague those that scourge this fair city/so next their eyes turn towards this Sage/their craven mouths should froth with rage/as fortune fair theirs goes to me."
[X][Mana] Something Else (Test the Arcane Spell: "My secrets are mine to share / Intrude upon me none shall dare / I shroud myself in the thorns of night / my secrets are the new moon's light.)
[X][Mana] Using an insect, test the ability of a large dose of Thaum > Graphite > Copper to revert extreme whole-body mortal wounds if applied fast enough. This could potentially be the basis of an "extra life" device if it works.
[X][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (test Arcane effects on basic materials: as an apology for the long list, see the spoiler below for easy copy pasting)
-[X][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Curestone, Aluminum, Iron, Copper)
-[X][Mana] Try to identify the set bonus for True > Cloth by wearing a bunch of clothes and true attuning to all of them
-[X][Mana] Study a target for Phomens (Platinum, Silicon)
-[X][Mana] Parahumans all have a specific structure in their brain; what happens if you attune mana to it? Thaum > Corona Pollentia
[X][Mana] Something Else (Stone Free uses a mass of distinct mana types carrying distinct patterns drawn by basically "Scanning" a bird. What would happen if we instead attempted to take the bird mana and mix it all into a vague swirling mass before synthesizing it. Would the result be something remarkably esoteric? Would it simply be a "Stone holding all the powers of a bird") Or would it simply be some sort of malformed junk?)
[X][Mana] Gallium appears capable of manipulating materials on a conceptual level instead of a physical one. Test out chains to see if you can find ways of adding desired conceptual properties to materials. This may let you make, for example, armor out of clothing that comes with no additional weight or restricted range of motion.
[X][Mana] Something Else (Your bird golems are capable of independent movement and performing simple tasks. What would happen if you used alchemy to convert them into a featureless form, such as a block of wood? Would this give you the ability to make essentially stealth golems, items capable of performing simple tasks despite lacking any visible ability to do those tasks?)
[X][Mana] try using Graviton Exchanger Mutation on a test plate of wood armor, to see if it'd let us make a much thicker armor withtoe it becoming to heavy, or even give an advantage to jumping.
[X][Mana] Something Else (Attempt to mix the bird golem transmutation mana, with plant mana, and create a living wood golem. As opposed to our usual non living wooden birds.)
[X][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Gu-Harvest > Graphite) Some kind of mutation to destroy/feed on parasites and dangerous things?
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Keratin > Graphite) Flight or weightless mutation?
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Light of the Vampire > Graphite) Stronger in the day mutation?
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Serene Glow > Graphite) Stronger at night mutation?
[X][Mana] try using Thaum > Timeshift Crystal > Brain enhancement on our brain,
-[X]and if that works well create a circlet full of timeshift crystal dust that will dump a large dose of the mana into our brain.
Explaining everything that happened while I was in Panama took a while. By the end of my explanation, and talking about how I electrocuted a guy that tried to attack Panacea, dad seemed, if not happy, at least mollified.
"I still think it was reckless. You did good, but don't try to convince me that it wasn't, Taylor," he begins.
"I can be proud of you just as much as I can be scared for you. It could have been you in that situation. It could have been worse. Even if it was as simple as missing the trip back, or catching the wrong person's attention."
"Promise me you'll be careful, at least until things settle down. You're the one who decided to be a rogue, and that means you're in more danger, and with less help when that danger comes," he says.
I nod. "I'll be careful. Keep my head down for a while. I know there are probably a lot of people who want to get their hands on me, now that I've shown some of what I can do. But, in return, you should understand, dad, I'm not exactly alone," I point out, thinking about Lisa and Panacea. Both of them I had only just met, but both seemingly willing to offer at least some small amount of help.
"I'll make sure to have some people in my corner," I finish.
"That's all I can ask," he responds, taking a large drink from his coffee.
"On that same subject," I start ponderously.
"I think I'd like to try making contact with Panacea again. We talked a bit before, and she probably knows a lot more than I do about healing," I ask.
Dad hums at this. "I don't have a problem with that. Will you need a ride?"
I shake my head. "No, I need to stop by the PRT anyway, something about donations to Sage, apparently. It'll be good exersize."
I pack up my costume and jog out of the house, slipping behind a building and changing into my armor before continuing on to the PRT building. If anyone knew a good way to contact them, maybe it would be them?
When I arrived, the building was a lot less quiet than it was the first time I was there.
"Hello Sage. What brings you here today?" the secretary asks as I jog up to the front counter.
I pause for a second, remembering why I came here. "Oh, uhh, Miss Militia said something about donations to healers? She wanted me to come back and talk about those."
The lady takes my words in stride, picking up her phone and dialing in a number to call someone while I take a seat in a back room that I'm directed to. Plopping down into the plastic chair with a rattle from my wooden armor, I set my duffel bag of civilian clothes off to the side.
"It will take some time to have everything brought over, ma'am. Some of the wards have expressed interest in meeting you, if that is alright?" the secretary calls out a few minutes later.
I shrug. "I guess I don't have a problem with it?" I say, thinking about how odd it is that they apparently want to talk to me.
When a bunch of costumed teens file into the room, a few of them I recognize from before, I'm reminded of a bunch of dogs sniffing around a newcomer. A bit too excited and curious for their own good.
Vista is the first to approach, thrusting out a hand eagerly while the other three stay a more respectful distance away. "Hi again, Sage. I heard about some of the stuff you did at the Endbringer battle. You did really well for your first outing," she compliments.
I shake her hand, confused at her wording. "My first outing?" I ask.
"Well, yeah, I haven't heard about you before, and we're usually kept pretty up to date on new capes, one way or another. Was that not your first time going out in costume?" she asks politely.
Technically, it wasn't, but it was pretty much my first time going out in public. When I said as much, Aegis whistles good-naturedly.
"It's hard to beat a first-impression as good as yours, in that case. Not many heroes make their first public appearance be medical work at an Endbringer battle. That'll probably win you a lot of points with some people," he says.
"I'm Aegis, this is Gallant and Clockblocker," he introduces the others who came in as well.
"Sage," I say, a bit embarrassed by all the positive attention they're flinging in my face.
"Oh, I met you earlier, you were in that interview I had!" I point out, Gallant waving awkwardly.
"Hey, you already met her, why didn't you tell any of us that?" Vista says, crossing her arms a bit petulantly.
He winces. "Well, it wasn't really that important, I didn't think," he says awkwardly.
"So, Sage, I saw some of what you were doing back there at the fight. Your powers are kinda crazy, what even are they?" Clockblocker interjects, a bit less amusement in his voice than I would have expected from one of the most "comedic" wards I had heard about.
"Oh, uhh," I start, only for Vista to slap Clockblocker on the arm.
"You don't just ask someone that flat out, jeeze," she responds.
I hold up my hands disarmingly, "No, it's fine, I'm pretty sure the cat is out of the bag there anyway, all things considered."
If only I had a better way of explaining my powers other than 'I can do magic'...
"So, I make energy, and it changes properties. I can turn it into stuff like healing, or electricity," I say vaguely, not really having a better explanation that doesn't involve dictating a short novel of theories and information I had been jotting down about the power.
"What about you all?" I say, looking around at the four of them as I change the subject.
"I used to be really into cape stuff but uhh, it's been a while," I explain nervously.
They all share a look that seems to convey some kind of inside joke that I don't really get.
"Well, the short version is, I can warp space, Gallant can sense and shoot emotions, Aegis is your basic Alexandria Package, and Clockblocker's superpower is making corny jokes," she lists them off one by one.
"I take offense to that. My jokes are cheesy, not corny!" he retorts, pouting under his mask.
Our conversation is interrupted by a PRT officer walking into the room with a clipboard and a large suitcase.
"Are you Sage?" he asks, looking at me.
"I'll need you to sign this," he says, handing over the clipboard and the paper attached to it. Looking it over, it seems to just be an ordinary form that just says "I picked up my donation from the PRT and confirmed it there,"
After I sign it, he hands over the case. "Along with the liquid assets, there are a number of documents included with this round of donations. Several of the parahumans healed by you opted to contribute to a fund for the PRT to pay out to you, so you may need to visit a bank to cash it all out," he explains.
With confusion, I pop open the case, memorizing the lock's password before choking.
The suitcase is full of money.
"Keep in mind that, once you are liable for it, these donations aren't tax-exempt," he offers, before leaving.
The wards, as teenagers are oft to do, are drawn to the unreasonable amount of money like moths to a flame.
"Holy crap! I haven't seen that much money in one place outside of like, drug busts," Clockblocker yelps.
"That is... Quite a bit of money. Did that many people really opt to pay you?" Aegis mutters.
I slap the suitcase shut. "I don't know, I... I need to go. I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed here,"
"Uhh, would any of you happen to know where Panacea hangs out? I've been wanting to meet with her, I guess as one healer to another?" I ask.
Gallant shifts a bit. "I can make a call, if you want. She typically spends her time at the hospitals, but she varies up which ones she goes to."
I nod. "That would be helpful, please," I ask.
He pulls out a simple flip-phone, and the other wards awkwardly mill about as he calls some girl named Victoria, asking about where Panacea is.
"She's at the St. Mathews memorial hospital right now. It's a bit of a long trip. Do you have a ride? I'm sure we could get someone to drive you there if you like,"
I think about it for a bit. On the one hand, I have no clue where that hospital is, and there's really not another hand involved in that metaphor.
"Thank you, I'd appreciate that."
As I leave, I notice Clockblocker giving me a weird look, like he's got something to ask, but I neglect to call him out on it before an agent in a dinky little car is ferrying me over to the hospital.
I thought the duffel bag with my civilian clothes was metaphorically heavy, but I quickly realize on the trip over there that a suitcase with thousands of dollars in it has way more perceived heft to it, all things considered.
I carry the case even more gingerly than the duffel bag as I walk into the hospital, trying to manifest more confidence than I actually feel, everyone's eyes hanging onto me as I walk into the hospital lobby in my full parahuman regalia.
The PRT Lobby was nothing like this, considering it was usually nearly empty, even in the middle of the day. A hospital, though, in Brockton Bay of all places, was a universal hotspot of people in need. Something reflected by just how many people there were.
A little kid pointed at me, babbling something to his mom, who looked like she was nursing a headache, and I saw someone snap a photo of me with their phone.
"I'm here to talk to Panacea? I'm a healer," I say meekly to the receptionist, whose bored expression pierces my soul.
"She's in room 203. Phil?" she says, turning to one of the orderlies.
He gives me a firm look. "Right. It's about time she took a break anyway."
As I'm taken along through several halls and up an elevator, I hear him use a radio to say some stuff that I don't catch.
Finally, I end up in some kind of break-room not unlike the ones where dad works. Coffee-maker, Fridge, Microwave. The life-support machinery of the 9-5 worker.
Panacea looks annoyed, drinking some black sludge from a foam cup that looks like it's had one-too-many cups of coffee in it in its lifetime. "Oh, it's you. Hey," she says blandly, sipping at the shadowy concoction.
The thought crossed my mind that I could probably make some kind of magical coffee, before I banished it entirely.
"I wanted to talk about some stuff, and I just figured, 'Oh, Panacea, she's the right person to talk to', so here I am," I say, chuckling helplessly.
This was not a good idea.
Despite how awful of an idea this was, Panacea laughs softly at my reasoning for interrupting her. "Alright. They're locking me in here for ten minutes, so I guess I might as well. What did you want to know?"
Despite all the ideas I had for conversation topics I had before, my mind suddenly blanks.
"What do you do when you get a huge donation?" I ask, remembering the heavy suitcase at my side, the money inside psychosomatically thrashing within, trying to burn a hole out of it, as far as my imagination is concerned.
Her face scrunched up in confusion. "I don't. Get donations, that is. I've set it up so that if I did somehow get some, they're just sent to charity. I don't want people to think I'm in it for the money," she explains.
"Why, did you get one?" she retorts, eyeing me a bit suspiciously.
I freeze like she just caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. "Y-yes? I'm a rogue. I uhh, am in it for the money."
"Not the healing earlier! I just wanted to help, there, but, yes, I have been trying to use my powers for work. Got bills to pay, and all that, uhh, mouths to feed? There's not anything wrong with being in it for the money, is there?" I quickly reiterate.
Panacea tries to look stern, recognizing my pitiful attempts at justifying myself for what they are, but her lips twitch too much for her to hold back.
"No, not technically. But just keep in mind that people spend money to get something. You'll probably get a few more donations before the 'requests' start coming in. New Wave gets a lot of donations, and a lot of really nasty requests sometimes," she explains.
"Oh. Thank you for the advice," I say.
She checks her watch. "Look, my ten minutes in solitary confinement are over, so I need to get back to healing. So unless you're getting paid by the hour, I've got to get back to my 'pro-bono' healing," she says, looking at me expectantly.
I realize what she's implying, and jog after her as she makes her way out of the room. "I can help! If you want, and if I'm allowed," I ask.
I start to get the vibe that she's enjoying herself. "Alright. I guess I can show you the ropes. Come on."
I follow along as she starts explaining.
"One thing I learned the hard way is, you have to have verbal or written consent to use parahuman abilities on someone like this. I got sued once for it, and Carol never let me live it down. At an Endbringer battle, it's different. You kinda throw away your right to not be healed when you sign up to throw yourself into a meat grinder, but outside of that, most forms of healing have side effects, people get paranoid about possible Mastering, it's not a great sight.
"I know for a fact that your healing isn't that clean-cut, so it matters a hell of a lot more for you," she continues, poking me in the chest with a serious tone.
"So, if they can't say 'Yes I consent', or they slur it too badly, or they say it too quietly, you have to keep your hands off of them. It sucks really bad, but better you hear it from me than from a prosecution lawyer, alright Sage?" she says.
I nod. "Make sure they consent 100% before doing anything."
Panacea gives me a thumbs up. "Obviously, there's no telling what a power might do to someone twenty or thirty years in the future, but you're also expected to explain any immediate side effects as well. It's not mandatory, but it's another thing to keep you safe from any dissatisfied customers," she continues, making a little jab at my rogue status.
"I didn't get a good chance to see your power in action back at the fight, but I did see it all after the fact when I was clearing up the side effects. With your permission, I'd like to observe you doing what it is you do. I'm pretty trusted thanks to my power, so that's another point in your favor if you decide to start trolling around hospitals blasting people with your 'healthy' beams," she offers as we enter a room with a guy covered with bandages.
The nurse hands Panacea a piece of paper that she quickly reads off. "Car crash. Lots of organ trauma and broken bones. Got a prescription for that, Sage? He's given written consent, so you're as good to go as you can get right now," she offers.
With injuries as numerous as his, the best thing I can think of is Diamond Mana. It's strong and efficient, but...
"The best thing I've got makes things softer and more elastic. I don't think the effect is harmful, but it's definitely a side effect," I explain.
The man in the bed gives me a look.
"You hear that, sir? She would like to heal you using her ability. I will be supervising to ensure that you are fully healed. Blink twice if you consent, and blink three times if you would prefer I heal you," she explains clearly and plainly.
He blinks twice.
"There you go," she says, holding a hand on the man's shoulder and looking at me expectantly.
I summon up a mass of diamond mana, spreading it out over his body and then infusing it.
The nurse gasps a bit when his bandages turn bright blue, but Panacea's reaction is a bit more subdued.
"Interesting. Whatever you did, it didn't like his bones that much. They're healed, but not as much as the muscles and organs. His concussion is gone too, so you've already got one over on me, Sage," she explains.
"I recognize this one. You used this on a few of the people back before, didn't you?" she asks.
"Yeah. Diamond Mana- er, Diamond Attuned Energy," I say, stumbling over my words for a moment.
Panacea doesn't miss my slip, giving me a look and a smirk that promises further questioning later on. "It's one of your best ones. I'd use that for any hospital work you do. Hey, get this guy some probiotics. Sage's diamond stuff fucks with bacterial health a lot. Viral stuff too, but that's a good thing."
She turns to me. "Alright, I think that's a good first test. If you want, we can go down the halls now. I'll take the left if you take the right, and we'll take a break after an hour. I want to be close by in case something goes wrong, but I'm liking what I see so far."
"Alright. Sounds good," I respond, happy to have apparently passed her trial, whatever it was.
I plop down into one of the break room chairs, sweating up a storm as Panacea pours two cups of coffee.
"Here," she says, stuffing one of the little foam cups into my hand.
"Oh, uhh, thanks," I respond, fumbling with my helmet for a bit before realizing I won't be able to open it normally without removing it.
With a mental shrug, I run a finger along the wooden plates, mutating a hinge into the wood with some plant magic and willpower. Ever since Panama, I noticed my ability to warp biological matter had increased a bit, as I felt some kind of deeper understanding in the back of my mind. Some whisper of Carbon's deeper nature nestling into my spirit that let me just spawn hinges on my helmet.
Panacea looked away when I did this, trying to make it look like a casual motion as she bit at her thumbnail.
Popping the lower half of my helmet open, I drank some of the coffee against my better judgment, frowning at the awful, bitter taste.
It was worse than Puff Puffs, a mana which took the form of goddamn cigarette flavored cream puffs for some unholy reason.
My stomach growled at me for mentioning cream puffs in the privacy of my own mind, and I casually spawned a little yellow cracker using Lightning Wafer mana. The cracker sparked with blue lights, which I ignored as I dipped it into my coffee to try and somehow improve the experience.
The cracker ceased to exist as it grounded out in the coffee, almost shocking me in the process.
"What the hell was that?" Panacea interjected, watching me with confusion.
"Lightning Wafer. It's supposed to be edible, I think?" I say, creating another one using mana attuned to my platinum ring and a crumb of stale bread that I kept in my attunement pouch.
Her eyes narrow. "Give me that," she says, snatching the snack from my hands and staring at it.
"How many powers do you have?" she mutters in a way that makes it uncertain if I was meant to hear it.
'Three-hundred and eighteen so far, give or take a few categories,' comes unbidden into my mind.
"Just the one, technically? It's just a really versatile one?" I instead say nervously.
She hands the cracker back, smirking. "So would you say it's basically magic, then?"
I cough, electricity cracker caught in my throat mid-meal.
As soon as I swallow, my response escapes before I can determine whether or not I wanted it to.
[][Panacea] "...Yes"
[][Panacea] "No! It's definitely not magic because magic isn't real!"
Panacea starts laughing, a wheezing, half-coughing affair that demonstrates her lack of experience with the action.
"Alright. Well, at least I know why you picked the name, then," she finally says, after getting herself under control.
"You did pretty good, for an hours work. I almost wonder if your power is better at healing than mine," she finishes, her expression twisting a bit.
[X][Soul] "Maybe." [][Soul] "Would you like to find out? I think I can share my power with others" (Locked due to lack of trust)
The conversation dies down for a bit after that.
"Listen, I know you aren't in it for the money, but... I think it's kind of wrong that you aren't getting paid more for what you do. I'm just putting that out there. You're a really good healer," I say, one of my real reasons for coming here bubbling up to the top of my mind.
She gives me a wry smile. "And I feel like I aught to grab you by the shoulders and shake you till you get how badly this city needs us and join me every day here so we can make a dent in this mess," she says, gesturing at the hospital in a general sense.
"It's... Kind of hard for me to not think of rogues as being one step away from villains. Especially when you seemed pretty intent on trying to squeeze money out of your power. You didn't set that briefcase down a single time while we were working, I noticed," she points out, and I remember that I had done exactly that, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the case in the hopes that it might help with our money problems so long as I didn't manage to lose it in the next few hours.
"Look, if you want to do this again, I'll give you my number. We can hang out after I'm done doing my rounds, or you can join up and help out. Whatever works. I get if you decide you don't want to work at the same hospitals as me though. Kinda hard to get a paycheck out of someone when Panacea is sitting in the other room willing to do it for free," she says, grabbing a piece of paper out of a nearby copier and scribbling her number down on it.
I nod. "I don't have a cape number yet, but I guess I could give you my home phone if you promise to be careful," I say.
"If you decide you want a big ol' healing creature to help you out, or just little old me to do the same, you can call and I'll show up, no charge," I offer, scribbling down my own number and tearing it off for her.
She looks at it apprehensively at my mention of "healing creatures".
"I'll think about it," she says.
With nothing left to be said, I decide to call it for the day and head home. She might be willing to spend eighteen hours just going from hospital to hospital, but I've...
Well, I guess I've got more profitable things to do, for now at least.
After quietly changing out of my costume and shoving all the money and checks into my duffel bag along with my costume, I call dad to come pick me up and take us home.
When he sees the money, his eyes bulge out of his head in a way that reminds me too much of a frog.
When all the excitement settles, dad presents me with a choice.
"Since it's your money, and your earned it fair and square, I'm not going to make you do anything with it that you don't want to, but, and this is up to you, we could use it to pay the loan on the funds I got for you earlier," he explains.
"The interest isn't too bad, so even if you did, you'd still have thousands of dollars left for your work, but if you think you can leverage it right, well, ten-thousand dollars, invested properly, could give you even more money to work with, loan or no loan," he explains.
[][Funds] Combine Dadbought Funds EX and Endbringer Spoils to create "Sage's Funds (8,250$)"
[][Funds] Keep both Dadbought Funds EX and Endbringer Spoils for now, for a total of 14,275$ (Dad will continue to make payments on the loan as needed)
[][Funds] Write-in.
Don't worry about missing actions here, This update was too big for one chapter alone! Taylor's Projects and Experiments will be dealt with next chapter.
For those of you who just can't wait, your Mana Tests, New Spells, and Updated Items can be found in the Informational Post Docs! I update those before I write updates, for simplified bookkeeping, so all the tests have already been done, among those that can be done offscreen.
[x][Funds] Combine Dadbought Funds EX and Endbringer Spoils to create "Sage's Funds (8,250$)"
-[X][Funds] Don't pay the loan off immediately. Set aside some of the donations to pay off the loan, but continue to pay in smaller increments. Taylor can make more money later, especially as a healer, but having her identity figured out (by even more people) is permanent. Until we get a better memory wiping spell at least.
[x][Funds] Combine Dadbought Funds EX and Endbringer Spoils to create "Sage's Funds (8,250$)"
-[X][Funds] After earmarking what will be needed for the loan, split what remains 3 ways: 1/3 to reinvest in Sage without ever passing through your civilian identity, 1/3 to give no-strings to dad as thanks for his support and 'interest' on the money we 'loaned' from him, and 1/3 to spend on immediately upping our quality of life fixing all the problems that made us want to make money in the first place as well as celebrating and rewarding ourselves with a few luxuries.
[x][Panacea] I think Panacea is getting the wrong idea about you being a healing rogue... Between making money off spices and the donations you've already gotten you could probably afford to heal at hospitals pro-bono on weekends?
[X][Mana] With these new sage reinvestment funds, we should buy enough Aluminum and Copper to test their true attunement set bonuses, and so we have enough of each to make a specialized armor or similarly sized project in the future.
Me and dad agreed that with the donations, there wasn't any reason to not pay off the loan now. He took the cash, and explained how he would be paying it off in increments.
"It would attract the wrong kind of attention if I just dumped it all off at once, no matter how you slice it," he said, and I couldn't agree more.
With that out of the way, I could focus fully on one of my more important projects. I needed a better way to protect myself. As it stood, I was relying on some magical wood, a knife, and a pile of glowing dirt to keep me safe from potential murderers and assaults. Something that wasn't going to fly.
Stalking down into my lab, I dumped my pouch of attunement samples onto the table, spreading them out so I could work on developing a new mana type. I already had Triage Shock, which could paralyze people to stop them from hurting themselves, and Lightstop, which could freeze time, but only for light.
I just needed something more general, and vague. I didn't need to paralyze wounded people or stop time for light, I needed to paralyze attackers, or freeze them.
Summoning up the two mana types with some quick attunements, the thought crossed my mind. 'well, what if I just combined them?' but I quickly dismissed it out of hand. It probably wouldn't do anything relevant to my problems.
With a small shrug, I do it anyway, mixing the bright yellow rays and the deep orange rays together until a golden glow was all that remained, the rays curled around into that familiar Ray Mana Donut that was the easiest way to keep ray magic under control.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 13, 11
Testing the result, it seemed that this mana both froze light and medically paralyzed a subject. The two effects had intermingled, and it seems the new magic had the power to make frozen-light restraints, but with a strong preference towards binding the site of injuries, of course.
Dismissing the magic to get rid of the frozen light around my arm, I considered other options.
Thaumic Phonems would be the next good candidate.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 11, 4
Summoning up a mass of the Time-freezing magic, I studied it carefully, words popping into my mind from time to time that seemed appropriate, but felt incorrect when I muttered them.
"Oh. Duh," I say suddenly, slapping myself in the face.
I summon thaumic mana in front of me, whispering a familiar word to it.
"Tick," I mutter. Suddenly, the wavy haze of invisible mana turns a glowing orange, and I can feel it absorbing time itself somehow.
When I continue, muttering "Tock" at the mass of frozen magic, it writhes out of control, the time it absorbed being released all at once.
It was unstable, I could tell. The air near the edges of the magic was wavering and heating up rapidly, near the end of my little experiment, and I suspect anything jammed into the field would amplify that instability further.
I got the barest hint of intuition as I studied the new phonems, some quirk of time magic being made known to me.
Fire and Water oppose one another. Earth and Air oppose one another as well. Elemental Enemies, in a sense.
Time magic was unstable and dangerous without a firm hand, not because it reacted poorly with the things around it, but because it reacted poorly with itself. Time opposed Time.
I turned my attention to the other side of the equation. If stopping time using Tick and Tock weren't safe enough for stopping ordinary attackers, then a Paralysis spell would be needed.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 1, 16
I tried everything I could think of, from willpower to phonems, but after a lot of testing, I realized one very important thing.
The heart is a damn muscle, one that doesn't react well to "general" paralysis.
Without some way to intentionally exclude vital muscles like Vital Shock does, I know I won't be able to safely paralyze people. I'd just be stopping their heart and lungs without fail.
It proved to be a challenge beyond my current skills, at any rate.
With a sigh, I slumped in my chair. So my options were to throw people into the eye of a time-storm or zap them until they stop moving, on that front.
I turned to other experiments to drown out the sting of failure. One of the most obvious was, I got the feeling that True Attunements were more than just energy I could get out of stuff I wore.
That intuition eventually led me to ditching my armor and slipping into every piece of white cotton clothing I could get my hands on. Cotton Socks, Cotton pants, cotton shirt, everything, all the same color, all the same basic material, if one ignored the buttons and subtle differences in bleaching methods.
With a deep breath, I unleashed my magic, allowing it to flood all of the clothing at once, to attune to it and become True Clothing Mana.
I grimaced when that turned out to not be quite enough. Rooting around in my clothes, I eventually managed to find something. A weird-looking cotton cap that I hadn't worn in years.
Slipping it over my head, something clicked in my mind, and I suddenly knew cloth.
All of my clothing matching felt right, incredibly right, like I had devoted myself to some unknown spirit of cloth and been blessed for it. Or, to be less pretentious...
I had cloth powers now.
With my index finger and my middle finger pressed together, I ran them along the smooth cactus walls of the basement, watching with fascination as stitches appeared to trail behind where I touched, black threads somehow sewn into the cactus.
I ran back upstairs.
"Dad, do you have any ruined clothes? I need to test something," I insist.
"Uhh, yeah, I think I've got some, why do you ask?" he responds, before shaking his head.
"More testing?" he asks rhetorically, chuckling at my eager nod.
It takes a minute of waiting for him to bring up a few torn pairs of pants and jackets, and with a touch, I allow my palms to glow with a faint tan light.
When I remove them, the clothing is mended, as if they were brand new.
He picks up one of the jackets, eyebrows raised. "Wow. This is really nice, actually. I can't remember the last time this jacket looked this good," he praises.
"I think I can get powers from matching gear, as long as I'm wearing enough of the same basic stuff, and pumping my magic into it," I explain.
Indeed, I felt weaker, in a sense, while I was doing this. I had effectively switched 'modes', my mana being pumped into my possessions, instead of being pumped into the air around me, or into my own body. My spellcasting and physical prowess would be weakened, in exchange for my equipment's bonuses.
Taking a knife to my shirt-sleeve, the cloth was almost impervious, frayed fibers regenerating together before the blade could get past them properly.
One of the last powers I could feel, at this level of strength, was fitting with the rest of this "Set's" abilities, I could use my palms to spin thread just by grabbing it. Taking a few pairs of socks, I could just pull at them, and what ended up being between my hands was a rope twisted so tight that it looked like a machine had done it.
Letting go, though, the socks quickly fell back apart, with no knots or anything to keep them twisted up.
I got the feeling that, unlike some of my other magics, True Attunements didn't rely so much on me wearing a single material, so much as it relied on all my equipment matching.
Ideas of Steel Armor painted with Ruby-doped paint, or clothing made of hair interwoven with gold threads and beaded with jewels sung through my mind.
So long as nearly everything matched, I could get a set bonus. I got the feeling that even holding a weapon that wasn't made out of cotton would be pushing my power to its limits trying to maintain the effect, much less switching out for a pair of wool socks.
It was interesting and left me hungry to know more. What would Aluminum Armor do? A copper suit and sword?
Just ordinary cotton clothes let me summon stitches Ex-nihilo onto any surface, mend clothes with a touch, and spin things into ropes and threads with equal ease. And the stronger I got, the more cantrips would emerge.
It was yet another facet of my abilities that seemed intent on branching off over and over into new complex forms to study.
I decided to move on to other tests, namely, ignoring the warnings my power gave me, and poking at this whole Arcane Magic business some more.
I dragged a bucket of water down into the basement and began testing magic attunements that took place inside it entirely, re-testing a lot of my older experiments in the new environment to see how they changed.
And boy, did they change.
Glass made things visible instead of making light, Bone apparently made goddamn ghosts instead of reanimating dead flesh, and silicon even stopped being a damn synthesis mana! Instead of making material, silicon made the illusion of material, when attuned underwater.
It was surprisingly easy to make a piece of fake gold using this magic, but as I grabbed the illusory gold coin and bent it, it burst with a flash, leaving nothing behind.
There goes that idea.
Whatever part of my power helped me quickly figure out what mana did was almost helpless as I tested the various Arcane Mana types, several of them outright giving me the feeling that my power had given up on trying to figure out what they did, leaving it up to me to try and figure it out.
But when I tested Gallium Magic, the palm of my hand was in the water for only a moment to push the mana in before I blacked out briefly, waking up in the corner of the room, the bucket kicked over and my hand held far away until I realized nothing had happened to me.
I could feel my instincts screaming in alarm in response to Arcane > Gallium mana. Anything that it touched would be transformed into a more "fitting" form. Without a way to forcibly restrict what the magic targeted, it would do this to everything. Magic, Matter, Energy, even Information. Anything that went into the water filled with the miasma of Gallium would have its form changed. Changed into what? I didn't know. All I could tell from the brief instant I observed it was that it would be changed into something more "fitting". Fitting what? I didn't know that either.
My power didn't even offer up a whisper of danger when I discovered a mana type that could make self-replicating zombies that hated all life, but it seemed terrified of this magic. It was too chaotic, too intertwined in the human psyche, and thus, too unpredictable.
My power's warning was fairly simple. If I'm going to experiment with it, I either need to wait until the magic is completely faded before checking the results, or I need a way to restrict its functionality, a way to stop it from doing... something... to the information, energy, and magic that went into the water.
I had no clue how I would do that, but my curiosity burned, even under the instinctual fear.
I moved on to the next tests to take my mind off of it.
One of my other major tests was finding out the effects of pure elements. I noticed that, unlike most of the composite materials I had been testing, pure elements had, for lack of a better word, more primal effects. More basic, but more narrow as well.
Phosphorus mana, for example, was an elemental ray, similar to aluminum, and technically silicon. Unlike those, however, the only thing Phosphorous Mana did was transform things into colder things. It didn't cool things down, it turned them into colder forms specifically, sometimes with bizarre results. Glass, for example, transformed into ice if I applied Phosphorous Mana to it. Fire, meanwhile, transformed into blue fire that seemed to drink in the room's warmth.
Iodine was another interesting discovery. Unlike Carbon, which seemed to deal with Life in general, Iodine dealt with Health. It was able to heal wounds, but it seemed to do so by moving health around, rather than by adding more. Wounds healed by it would leave behind areas that were slower to heal afterwards for a while.
Antimony was one of the most interesting ones. I had the odd suspicion that it somehow had precognitive effects. It seemed to transform things, making them more "ironic", in the greek sense. Testing it on one of the walls of my lab turned the wall into green prison bars, made of a cactus-like metal, while testing it on a piece of my armor made it almost completely transparent.
I was too afraid to continue testing it anymore today, when after applying it to an old picture of myself, the only thing that changed was two holes being punched into the photo, right over where my head was.
I don't think I want to know what would happen to a newer picture of myself.
I moved on to other tests shortly after that, but the uneasy feeling that came with messing with all of this conceptual magic stuck with me when I went to bed that night.
The next day, I woke up entirely too early, but since it was a school day, I didn't feel comfortable trying to go back to sleep.
Trudging down into the lab, I decided to do some other tests that had been tickling my curiosity. It started with me grabbing Thoth's cage, since I would need some Bird-Attuned mana for it.
Normally, I tried to keep the different bird mana types separately, but I hadn't yet tried to see what would happen if I intentionally mixed them until they were completely homogenous.
Thoth didn't put up too much fuss when I attuned mana to her this time, a regular diet of bird food and scritchy-scratches slowly calming the pigeon's ire towards me.
Twisting the kaleidoscopic mass of colorful magic until it turned white, I attuned it to a stone, synthesizing a rock from the mana.
The result was a pale white stone that didn't seem to do anything except glow brightly. It didn't fly or move around or anything like that, but I wasn't prepared to leave it at that. My power insisted that the rock was trying to act like a bird, since it didn't state any outright difference in mana type.
Using Mana-sight, I studied the stone, and was amazed with what I saw.
The rock was "pulsing", for lack of a better word. It was drawing in mana, processing it, and then releasing it in a new, different form that seemed to be trying to cling onto the material around it, and failing.
I took the Golem Core and embedded it in a wooden bird statue, eager to see how it differed from my other golem-birds, but it didn't quite react. Something was missing.
Experimenting with a few different things, I managed to get it working when I applied some Graphite Magic to the wood, using willpower to bring out its softening aspects.
The result was stunning. The bird flew!
The golem had been trying to fill the statue with a "bird-like essence", and when I softened up the wood enough for it to shift and move properly, the magic took full hold of it, simple feathers peeling off of its surface as parts of it compressed and shifted.
Using this one, central core for my golem improved everything about it, from its dexterity to its efficiency. It was like the difference between making a bird out of mechanical parts, trying to emulate each of the organs with different mechanisms, and instead, trying to simulate a bird on a computer, the computer 'knowing' how each part is meant to move, and making it do so accordingly.
There was one major flaw, however, which I noticed immediately. With great power, comes great compromises. Noticing the huge glowing white core on the bird, I tried to figure out a way to cover it up or armor it, but it was a lost cause.
Cover it up with a clear plate? Starves the golem of liquid magic in the ambiance, it needs exposure to air.
Hide it inside the mouth with an air vent? Starves the golem of ray magic in the ambiance, it needs exposure to light.
Cover it up with a transparent, porous set of grates? Starves the golem of wave magic in the ambiance, it needs exposure to vibrations.
What's more, some instinct deep down in my soul felt like, for some asinine reason, my golems would perform better, even in combat, if I made their cores blatant and exposed. As if their great weakness, in turn, permitted them to have greater strength.
My next test, while I still had some time, was to see if Grout of Future Past was resistant to time in the literal sense, or if it was just resistant to weathering.
Creating a pebble made out of it, I summoned up a mass of both Ashes to Ashes, and Dust to Dust Mana, the two energies in each hand prepared to erode away whatever they touched, one, by eroding at such high speed as to emulate sped up time, and the other, by accelerating time for natural erosion itself.
Sure enough, the time magic had little effect on Grout of Future Past, while the sand magic blasted it away into nothing. I had a time-resistant material on hand.
Lastly, I climbed up on the roof, checking on the bead of Sea Glass I had thrown up there weeks ago. It had been absorbing the light of the sun whenever it flashed green at sunset, and was now totally saturated. As I picked it up, I felt a sense of rejection from it.
It seems it would have been more effective for me to actually be there for each of the sunsets, to bear witness as it absorbed the light. Nonetheless, I slip the bead into my pocket before dropping down and getting ready for school.
I think I'll wear cotton today.
School was practically bliss, as it had been ever since Sophia had left. The police still weren't mentioning what happened, but I hadn't gotten any more scares at home, nor had anyone shown up on my plant-cameras.
Without her, Emma was slowly starting to collapse into herself, only bothering to snap at anyone who got too close or annoyed her with her usual biting remarks. Maddison still hung around, but it was the awkward sort of hanging around, like one does with their coworkers because they don't have anything better to be doing.
The only things that came close to my previous levels of hatred for school came from Greg's continued babbling at me at lunch, since I had apparently not resisted nearly enough to keep him from getting caught in my gravity well, and the occasional hateful glance from Emma, whenever she felt energetic enough to do so.
I worried what might happen if Emma decided to actually do something, after this much time spent holding back, and remembered my resolution to find out what happened to break her into what she is today.
"So, yeah, turns out, the original street fighter was actually kinda terrible, which is why they just keep making sequels of the second game, which is a really good game!" Veder finishes, whatever rambling thing he was talking about coming to a close.
"Do you play any videogames, Taylor?" he asks, eager to hear my take on the matter.
"No, sorry" I say plainly and clearly, hoping he'll drop the matter.
He looks disappointed for only a moment, before an idea crosses his little mind.
"Oh! Well, if you want, you can borrow one of mine, I've got all kinds of games and consoles and stuff, Strategy Games, ones with a lot of plot, Sci-fy, Fantasy," he starts listing them off. The last one finally catches my interest, if only briefly.
I steel myself for another of his long-winded one-sided discussions before I finally ask, just in case there might be something useful buried in that little head of his.
"Fantasy? Like magic and stuff?" I ask.
"Yeah! I've got all the classics, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana," he begins.
The last one catches my interest, and I realize with some dawning horror that with how broad and nonsensical my powers are, even fictional works might have some sort of nugget of truth buried in them.
[][Veder] I can't believe I'm about to ask to borrow one of his games for research.
-[][Veder] Legend of Zelda
-[][Veder] Final Fantasy
-[][Veder] Secret of Mana
-[][Veder] Ask if he has something particular, (Write-in)
[][Veder] There's no way a videogame would have anything useful for my abilities. The energy is just CALLED mana, that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Time passes quickly after lunch, and before too long, I'm back at home, eager to figure out what to do next.
With ways to protect yourself and a stronger spirit, you have more freedom with your actions! (Write-Ins are permitted for more action classes)
Final week of May Plans:
[][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Daily Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea.
-[][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones in prison.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones that escaped.
-[][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Write-In Plan)
-[][Cape Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Cape Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[][Project] Something Else (Write-In)
-[][Project] Alchemy consumes your mind. You'll discard a project this week. (If this vote wins, up to ten Write-in [][Alchemy] experiments will be processed this turn instead of one major project.)
[][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Phonem's effect (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Study a target for Phomens (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Transmutation (Choose an Elemental Ray and a Non-Silicate Target)
[][Mana] Something Else (Write-In)
9 Research Obtained.
Stats
Research: 68
A good start.
Overall Health: 13
You're a very small, but not squishy human.
Overall Magical Power: 10
You are a competent Channeler, using raw willpower and attuned mana to plow your way through problems.
You also dabble in Wizardry as well, to a lesser extent, and your overall magic leans towards Communion, the art of controlling nature, and Biomancy, the art of manipulating Life Vitae.
Abilities
Magical Soul: D
Rating: Trump ???
Your soul emits magic. The stronger your soul, the more powerful your magic. Your resolve to fend off the death of others at any cost has strengthened your soul.
Magical Body: E
Rating: ???
Your body contains some magic, your soul empowering your body without your direct intervention.
Magical Power: C
Rating: Trump ???
You are a parahuman with the power to create this anomalous energy known as "Mana", at will. Once per month, you may boost your Magical Power ranking to B for one scene.
Boosted for One Month.
Composition Detection: S
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to detect the exact composition of materials. So long as you apply mana to them, that is. Fairly Niche.
Eidetic Memory: A
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to never forget what mana attunements you have learned, their applications, and their nuances. You will also never forget any word or noise you test on mana, or the effects it has.
School
Attunement Chain
Shorthand
Type
Effects
Other
Ivory
Thaum > Ivory
Acid Melt
Liquid
This mana is somewhat acidic to nonliving organic material.
Boron
Thaum > Boron
Ancient Extract
Ray
Extracts compounds and chemicals, starting with the ones that are the oldest.
Beryllium
Thaum > Beryllium
Stabilize
Alchemical Liquid
This mana extracts unstable concepts from an object.
Warning: Conceptual Effect. Unrestricted usage presents high risk of unwanted consequences.
-
This mana takes upwards of an hour to attune, due to Beryllium's slow attunement speed.
Phosphorus
Thaum > Phosphorus
Ice
Elemental Ray
This mana exudes Elemental Cold, turning things into colder forms on contact, and erasing synthetic matter whose element opposes that of Ice.
Cadmium
Thaum > Cadmium
Devalue
Alchemical Ray
This mana steals the worth of what it comes into contact with, reducing its craftsmanship.
Warning: Conceptual Effect. Unrestricted usage presents high risk of unwanted consequences.
-
Intense willpower, or other forms of alchemical magic can manipulate the craftsmanship stolen by this mana.
Selenium
Thaum > Selenium
Moonlight
Ray
This mana emits moonlight, and reacts oddly to certain things on contact.
Scandium
Thaum > Scandium
Northern Wind
Ray
This mana creates a chilling wind that follows it. This wind ignores creatures that are durable or short in stature, passing over them harmlessly.
Manganese
Thaum > Manganese
Refinement
Ray
This mana reduces the negative features of what it comes in contact with,
Niobium
Thaum > Niobium
Arrogance
Ray
This mana warps information, making it more confident and hubristic. The more confident the user, the more powerful this mana becomes.
Cobalt
Thaum > Cobalt
Underdog
Ray
This mana equalizes what it affects. Entities under its influence are altered, such that the strongest become weaker, and the weakest become stronger.
Lithium
Thaum > Lithium
Stone Cultivation
Elemental Ray
This mana produces raw Stone Essence. Stones near it become greater than they were before, their element more intense.
Iodine
Thaum > Iodine
Heal
Liquid
This mana intelligently heals wounds it comes in contact with.
Areas healed by this magic take twice as long to heal if injured again, for a period of time.
Antimony
Thaum > Antimony
Reveal Fate
Alchemical Ray
This mana twists what it touches into a more ironic form.
Warning: Conceptual Effect. Unrestricted usage presents high risk of unwanted consequences.
Indium
Thaum > Indium
Simplify
Alchemical Ray
This mana affects magic it comes in contact with, transforming it into more simplistic forms based on its intended purpose.
Warning: Conceptual Effect. Unrestricted usage presents high risk of unwanted consequences.
Zirconium
Thaum > Zirconium
False Face
Ray
This mana creates an illusion of beauty. The more mana that is used, the more terrifying the result.
Thorium
Thaum > Thorium
Frankenseele
Ray
This mana is drawn to the nearest and soonest place of a future Lightning Strike. When lightning strikes this mana, it gains the power to remove and inter the souls of the weak into new hosts.
Strong willpower can change the electricity source that the mana seeks to enact its effect.
Thorium Oxide
Thaum > Thorium Oxide
Soulshaking Dirge
Wave
This mana builds up energy, which, when released, unleashes a powerful, bone-deep roar that unsettles the spirit.
Quartz
Thaum > Salt > Quartz
Seam
Elemental Ray
This mana narrows cuts, making seperations thinner.
Hybrid
(Thaum > Salt) + (Thaum > Quartz)
Precise Cut
Hybrid
This mana creates a narrow thin cut.
Graphite
Thaum > Quartz > Platinum > Graphite
Electrical Mutation
Liquid
This mana mutates an organism to be capable of producing free electrons in a given direction.
Platinum
Thaum > Quartz > Graphite > Platinum
Microexpress
Ray
This mana targets muscles in a target, manipulating them to smooth the target's surface.
Platinum
Thaum > Quartz > Diamond > Platinum
Lightning Perfection Beast
Ray
This mana creates an inhumanly structured creature from electricity, so long as the magic lasts.
Diamond
Thaum > Quartz > Platinum > Diamond
Lightning Beam Mutation
Liquid
This mana creates an organism or organ from biomass with the ability to create an electron beam.
Sulfur
Arcane > Sulfur
Hellforge
Elemental Liquid
This mana transforms heat into a hellish material. The greater the heat, the more valuable the result.
Aluminum
Arcane > Aluminum
The Call
Elemental Ray
This mana, when applied to a target, draws their counterparts closer.
Quartz
Arcane > Crystal Quartz
Sharpen
Elemental Ray
This mana sharpens what it is applied to, creating bizarre structures as angles are more pronounced in unclear ways.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Glass
Arcane > Glass
Enlighten
Elemental Ray
This mana makes a target visible temporarily, even in total darkness, using an unknown method.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Silicon
Arcane > Silicon
False Object
Elemental Ray
This mana creates a physical illusion.
Blood
Arcane > Blood
Frenzy
Liquid (Miasma)
This mana fills things within the miasma with bloodlust and strength.
Bone
Arcane > Bone
Sea Wraith
Liquid (Miasma)
This mana draws up the undead imprint of what it touches, transforming into wraiths that flees death and attack the living, if able. Inanimate Wraiths created by this magic possess undead properties while manifested.
Brain
Arcane > Brain
Sea Specter
Liquid
This mana transforms based on the thoughts around it, taking on a new form with unknown goals.
Diamond
Arcane > Diamond
Sprite
Liquid
This mana takes the form of a mysterious sprite.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Egg
Arcane > Egg
Mutate
Liquid
This mana mutates what it is applied to, growing things out of control into unknown biological structures.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Eye
Arcane > Eye
Visions
Liquid (Miasma)
This mana fills itself with visions whose contents are unclear whether they are reality or fantasy.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Meat
Arcane > Meat
Hidden Potential
Liquid
This mana strengthens things in a target that are not immediately apparent.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Paper
Arcane > Paper
The Language
Liquid
This mana inscribes what it is applied to with a swirling wavy language that matches no existing script.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Plant
Arcane > Plant
Hedge Maze
Liquid (Miasma)
This mana grows plants into an intricate darkened structure, if allowed to do so.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Skin
Arcane > Skin
Tendril
Liquid (Miasma)
This mana spreads out, congealing into tendrils which hold back harm.
Air
Arcane > Air
Whispers of the Lake
Wave
This mana whispers words of magic that seem to lack coherence or any discernable rationale.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Zinc
Arcane > Zinc
Sinister Plot
Ray
This mana afflicts a target with an unknown fault.
Nickel
Arcane > Nickel
Formulate
Ray
This mana transforms chemicals into other random chemicals, combining and splitting them at what is seemingly complete random.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Salt
Arcane > Salt
Giggling Shade
Ray
This mana splits off a fragmented schism of a target.
Tin
Arcane > Tin
Spreading Arcana
Ray
This mana disperses itself until gone. Its effects are undetected.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Gold
Arcane > Gold
Under the Sun
Ray
This mana, while it exists, makes the gold it was attuned to glitter and gleam with a mysterious glow. The light of the sun is drawn to it through cracks and crevices.
Platinum
Arcane > Platinum
Malfunction
Ray
This mana makes nonfunctional machinery begin to malfunction, if it runs on electricity. Televisions will turn on, only to spark and flicker with half-mangled snippets of sound and video, radios will pick up signals briefly between bouts of static, and motorized devices will haltingly drive forward and backwards with no particular aim.
Lead
Arcane > Lead
Spirit Pressure
Ray
This mana exerts contextual pressure.
Mild Steel
Arcane > Mild Steel
Whole
Ray
This mana slows or prevents the scattering of the parts of what it was attuned to.
Tungsten
Arcane > Tungsten
Test
Ray
This mana reduces a target's control over itself. Overcoming this magic can lead to an increase in control.
Iron
Arcane > Iron
Distort Forces
Ray
This mana seeks out targets in motion, distorting and warping kinetic energy it comes in contact with.
Gallium
Arcane > Gallium
Reroll
Alchemical Liquid (Miasma)
Objects within this mana are shifted and transformed into new, more fitting forms.
WARNING: Extreme Conceptual Risk. Do not make contact with water saturated with this magic. Do not draw mana from water currently saturated with this magic. Do not extract matter from water currently saturated with this magic. Do not extract information from water currently saturated with this magic. Do not extract energy from water currently saturated with this magic.
Protective Magic strongly reccomended. Restrictive Magic strongly reccomended. Tailored Vessel for use of this magic strongly reccomended.
Graphite
Thaum > Gu-Harvest > Graphite
Inert Growth
Liquid
This mana makes organisms crowd around dangerous substances, drawing them together before transforming into a hardened vessel that can be tapped to extract the substance.
Graphite
Thaum > Keratin > Graphite
Shell
Liquid
This mana makes an organism mutate, gaining bug wings, hair, or claws, depending on the keratin source in question.
Graphite
Light of the Vampire > Graphite
Create Thrall
Liquid
This mana transforms an organism into a Thrall that gains energy from solar light and stores it in their blood. Direct sunlight will rapidly make such creatures combust or explode, however.
Graphite
Serene Light > Graphite
Bioluminescence
Liquid
This mana makes an organism absorb moonlight and release it in order to glow.
Water
Curse > Water
Arcane Curse
Wave
In addition to the effects of Curse, this mana reacts to sound as Arcane Mana does.
Ice
Thaum > Gallium > Ice
Chilling Arcane Polymorph
Wave
In addition to the effects of Polymorph, this mana reacts to sound as Chilling Arcane Mana does.
Water
Thaum > Gallium > Water
Arcane Polymorph
Wave
In addition to the effects of Polymorph, this mana reacts to sound as Arcane Mana does.
Tears
Thaum > Gallium > Tears
Desperate Arcane Polymorph
Wave
In addition to the effects of Polymorph, this mana reacts to sound as Desperate Arcane Mana does.
Attunement
Shorthand
Concept
Effects
Other
True > Timeshift Crystal
Tool of Time
[Create Shifted Time]
Equipment used by the user that incorperates Timeshift material will slowly undo damage dealt to it.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Curestone
Auto-Potion
[Create Life-Bearer]
As the user heals targets, wasted magic is converted into healing orbs that spawn from them. The more curestone is equipped, the better the conversion.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Aluminum
Element Dance
[Void]
The user aligns to the greatest element near them, the more aluminum is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Iron
Attack-Up
[Force]
The user exerts more force, the more iron is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Copper
Time-Aligned
{Time}
The user becomes more aligned with time, the more copper is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
School
Phonem
Name
Effect
Notes
Bone Mana
Tackatacka
Tumblebones
Mana takes the shape of bones and tumble to the ground. The bones chosen are the ones that would be closest to the mana's current shape.
Bone Mana
Dook
Resonant Hollow
Mana gains increased hardness, and emits a woody tone when struck.
Bone Mana
Crrk
Animate Dead
Mana begins emitting Undead Vitality
Platinum
Shing
Luxurious Luster
Mana takes on a luxurious sheen
Platinum
Hummm
Wirepath
Mana becomes conductive to electricity
Platinum
Ziz
Lightningkind
Mana transforms into electricity.
Silicon
Whum
Wafer
Mana flattens into a thin wafer.
Silicon
Chrchrichrik
Crystal
Mana begins to smoothen and shift into a faceted structure.
Silicon
Poof
Manifestation
Mana resolves into physical matter.
Lightstop Mana
Tick
Absorb Time
Mana begins to absorb time, freezing things inside it.
Lightstop Mana
Tock
Release Time
Mana releases time, speeding up things around it.
Name
Type
Rating
Description
Intonation
Barkskin
Arcane
???
The user's skin becomes as hard as bark, briefly.
"The great tree endures
The bark envelopes my skin
I am protected."
Warflame Spear Charge
Arcane
???
The user fires a shotgun spray of dense flaming spears.
"Twist and twirl, and waves unfurl, this mist of mana begins to curl,
This girl commands, go-man thy station, and strike my foes, with conflagration!"
Black Rose Whip Born of the River Lethe
Arcane
Stranger ???
Mana transforms into pitch black thorns. The thorns harm a target's short term memory on contact, and sustained contact can damage a target's memories of the user, if they know the user is the one who created them. This spell only functions on the night of a full moon, unless the caster expends a quantity of moonlight taken from a new moon by some method as a ritual ingredient.
"My secrets are mine to share
Intrude upon me none shall dare
I shroud myself in the thorns of night
my secrets are the new moon's light."
Stitch
Cantrip (Cloth)
???
The user's index and middle fingers glow with a natural energy. Things touching both fingers are stitched together with magically spawned threads.
Mend
Cantrip (Cloth)
???
The user's hands glow with a natural energy. Clothing is mended on contact.
Spin
Cantrip (Cloth)
???
The user's palms glow with a natural energy. Fibers pulled through their hands twist into threads.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[x][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea
-[x][Cape Activities] Set up your legal Second-Identity hire a specialist in parahuman law to help you possibly Carol Dallon (ask Amy on her opinion when you see her) or Quinn Calle (if Amy says her mom doesn't like rogues I guess)?
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (We will go directly to the government, and out ourselves to the trustworthy officials in charge of this exact thing. Simply have them quietly link our Sage Identity to our Real Identity. It's not like we plan on outright breaking laws anyways. Skirting and pushing them a bit with technically legal biotinkering? Absolutely. But we shouldn't have any major crimes planned. We can set things up, run by the PRT to collect donations, and move on with our plans.)
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[x][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea
--[X][Cape Activities] Bring your flying rat Thoth with you for Pan-Pan to look at and hear out what she can say as a fellow biotinker. You do not just give up on that idea to empower Dad and maybe few other trustworthy people.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Ask Lisa how to do this and use money in our civilian identity without it being obvious to people paying attention)
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[x][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea
--[X][Cape Activities] Bring your flying rat Thoth with you for Pan-Pan to look at and hear out what she can say as a fellow biotinker. You do not just give up on that idea to empower Dad and maybe few other trustworthy people.
-[x][Cape Activities] Set up your legal Second-Identity hire a specialist in parahuman law to help you possibly Carol Dallon (ask Amy on her opinion when you see her) or Quinn Calle (if Amy says her mom doesn't like rogues I guess)?
--[X][Cape Activities] Ask what the rules are for GIVING donations, or items and weapons that can be used in the next endbringer fight even if you aren't there.
--[X][Cape Activities] Aks if there's some kind of contact that'd be suitable to explain WHY you aren't prepared to be a Hero or officially affiliating with anyone, so they can know in case there are any situations they SHOULD contact you for, in some informal non-binding arrangement. Also, just having someone you can safely talk to.
[x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Something Else (Time to upgrade in STYLE. Start by building a brand new set of armor from wood, Solid Light, and greenery, using Woodsmith Armor, Lightsmith Armor, and general plant magics. The result should be wooden plates, over green "Fabric" with solid light woven into the plates and some of the greens. Darken the green parts of the armor a bit with paper magic. We should be able to stain it into a darker color, but not to dark. We want to make sure to make this look, and function good. So toy with transmutation untill we find a good wood transmutation and treat the inner side of the plates with that. If we only do the hidden side of the plates, it wont matter if the type makes it look weird. Grow a green coat to wear over this, and stain it with a lavender trim. Then put on a belt made of purple sage, with some pouches and bags we can use to carry important things. Like wise, grow a green hat and adorn it with a single purple sage growing off it. Weave a scarf of wheat, and make a new wooden mask, stain some thematic markings on it, then transmute it into porcaline. The result? A thematic, striking costume for us to associate our cape identity with. It looks fairly non threatening while being just enough showing off, more or less conveys what we do, and could easily be upgraded later with our host of biological and transmutation powers.)
[x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Alchemy consumes your mind. You'll discard a project this week. (If this vote wins, up to ten Write-in [][Alchemy] experiments will be processed this turn instead of one major project.)
[x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[x][Project] Invite Lisa to your house and enlist her help in help you decode/translate The Language (Arcane>Paper)
[x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[x][Project] Invite Lisa to a meeting (not in your house) and enlist her to help you decode/translate The Language (Arcane>Paper). Bait her by framing it as an impossible challenge for her intelligence, she will see right through it but will most likely be unable to pass anyway.
[x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Something Else (Time to upgrade in STYLE. Start by building a brand new set of armor from wood, Solid Light, and greenery, using Woodsmith Armor, Lightsmith Armor, and general plant magics. The result should be wooden plates, over green "Fabric" with solid light woven into the plates and some of the greens. Darken the green parts of the armor a bit with paper magic. We should be able to stain it into a darker color, but not to dark. We want to make sure to make this look, and function good. So toy with transmutation untill we find a good wood transmutation and treat the inner side of the plates with that. If we only do the hidden side of the plates, it wont matter if the type makes it look weird. Grow a green coat to wear over this, and stain it with a lavender trim. Then put on a belt made of purple sage, with some pouches and bags we can use to carry important things. Like wise, grow a green hat and adorn it with a single purple sage growing off it. Weave a scarf of wheat, and make a new wooden mask, stain some thematic markings on it, then transmute it into porcaline. The result? A thematic, striking costume for us to associate our cape identity with. It looks fairly non threatening while being just enough showing off, more or less conveys what we do, and could easily be upgraded later with our host of biological and transmutation powers.)
--[X][Project] try using Graviton Exchanger Mutation on a test plate of wood armor, to see if it'd let us make a much thicker armor withtoe it becoming to heavy, or even give an advantage to jumping.
[x][Mana] We also know (Construct + Barrier + Shell)> Whatever produces a corresponding armor (currently Wood and Light) we should test various materials and compare the strength to weight ratios of each because ngl wear wooden plate armor makes you look like a total dork especially when its dyed the color of your clothes
[x][Mana] We know she can attune mana without the materials it just takes longer. Taylor should train to attune mana without materials until she can do it as fast as she can with the material on hand.
[X][Mana] With these new sage reinvestment funds, we should buy enough Aluminum and Copper to test their true attunement set bonuses, and so we have enough of each to make a specialized armor or similarly sized project in the future.
[X][Mana] Using an insect, test the ability of a large dose of Thaum > Graphite > Copper to revert extreme whole-body mortal wounds if applied fast enough. This could potentially be the basis of an "extra life" device if it works.
[X][Mana] try using Thaum > Timeshift Crystal > Brain enhancement on our brain,
-[X]and if that works well create a circlet full of timeshift crystal dust that will dump a large dose of the mana into our brain.
[X][Mana] Use Arcane > Air and listen to the language which comes out of it. Try to speak it using no mana, Thaum mana, and Arcane mana. Use a linguistics book to see if you can decipher it.
-[X][Mana] Study it for Phonems
[X][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Test Vibrato stone mana. Also check the physical properties of it. Try creating it in various locations around the house and observe the differences. Go out in costume if we have to to get stones from assorted locations.)
[X][Mana] Something Else (Cast "Black Rose Whip Born of the River Lethe" and apply the resulting magic to silicon. Would it create a memory effecting stone? Try this with "Blaze Shotgun" as well, attuning the mana to the silicon before it can execute its delayed commands.)
[X][Mana] Something Else (Test the Arcane Spell "Tick, Tock, start the clock/ One, two, three, four, are you going to wait a second more? / Five, six, seven, eight, You might be running a little late. / With my blade of living silver / From your prison I do deliver." Looking at the results of prior spells we should also consider trying it WITH a blade made of wood and silver. We could make a wooden knife and wrap a silver necklace around it. The idea is to get a spell which can disrupt time magic. Grey Bubbles aside, we may need to deal with time magic related accidents at some point, or worse, an enemy with time abilities. Time opposes itself, and silver has gravity powers. So a blade charged with spacetime bending gravity that disrupts time prisons?)
[X][Mana] Something Else (See what happens if we take an image using Vital Sight, and then use Vital Mimicry to copy that vitality into something else. Either by passing the image form one mass of mana to the other, or applying the magic to paper as a medium. Can we record scans of something's Vitality in this way?)
[X][Mana] Use Arcane > Air and listen to the language which comes out of it. Try to speak it using no mana, Thaum mana, and Arcane mana. Use a linguistics book to see if you can decipher it.
[X][Mana] Use Arcane > Paper and try to puzzle out how the language works. Check out linguistics books from the library and try to use those to understand the basics of the language. See if mana has any special interaction with the language and whatever you inscribe it on.
[X][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (See what the minimum to acquire a set bonus is: Put together another complete cloth set and start by removing as much cloth from the second cloth set as viable (with scissors, the first set will let you repair the clothes afterwards). If possible, use this knowledge to identify the set bonuses for copper, curestone, quartz and timeshift crystal. If necessary, integrate them into a working cloth set, but do so individually if set bonuses merge or otherwise interfere with each other.)
[X][Veder] No. The idea have it's merit, but first, you don't want to encourage Greg of all people to pester you more, second, videogames usually doesn't elaborate on how abilities works. Maybe you should later look through the house for some fantasy books, fables or myths? Your mother was an English professor, after all.
[X][Veder] There's no way a videogame would have anything useful for my abilities. The energy is just CALLED mana, that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
[X][Veder] I can't believe I'm about to ask to borrow one of his games for research.
-[X][Veder] Ask if he has something particular; Disgaea or Castlevania or maybe Pokemon
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[X][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
--[X][Daily Activities] Look through the books you have.
[X][Daily Activities] Make contact with Lisa again: Explain why you are not prepared to become a villain or do anything illegal, even indirectly by helping her do such things, and cant be seen publicly associating with her, but if she's willing to despite those conditions you can still be friends and you do really need someone to talk to and consider her advice valuable. Also just use her as a shoulder to lean on and talk your feelings out.
-[X][Daily Activities] Think out loud-ish while near Lisa: "Hmm, how would the PRT react if we said we realized we might be able to do "something really bad" with our power, and want their help limiting ourselves so we *cant* do it if we "get captured by a villain or something". Possibly adding that if they do that, they can leave an exception in their conditioning for doing it against endbringers only. For example; what if we take an iron pot, fill it with water, mix in (in decreasing order of amount and importance) silicon dust, Zinc dust, ethanol, and bone meal. Then put a huge bunch of mana into it, then onto this mana thats 90% arcane but with a smidge of silicon, chant: "kettle kettle boil and bubble, brew me up a pot of trouble, upon those by this concoction splashed, turn their hopes all into ash, curse them with eternal pain, all attempts to cure: in vain, Their screams sweet music to my ears, let all who touch them be in tears, a melting horror to behold, 'Beware' all who see them be told, None shall dare the ire of Sage, when I release this cursed plague", and while applying it back to targeting the water and stuff in the pot and mixing it with Thaum > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc ("Cursed One") mana. Then before it "sets" add a drop of blood. Stir thoroughly with a bone, then pour into a throwable bottle and seal it."
I decided to go out healing with Panacea again. She knew more about navigating cape stuff than I did, to the point where some of the stuff she knew, I hadn't even known that it was something to know about.
As we went down through the halls, tackling patients one by one, we held brief, stilted conversations in the time it took us to walk or ride the elevator.
"I've been wanting to get a second identity set up, but it's been hard, navigating through all the stuff that has to be done," I explained at one point, venting about some of the more annoying parts of being a cape that I had discovered. Panacea seemed generally interested.
"I know what you mean. It doesn't get much easier if you decide to go public. The thing about public accountability is that the public really likes making you account for everything," she jokes dryly, wiping her hands off on a disposable towelette before dumping it in the trash nearby.
"Yeah. I'm thinking I'll have to hire a lawyer. Honestly, I was thinking about asking if you knew anyone who could help with that. The PRT gave me a list of firms who handled stuff like that, but..." I shrugged, summoning a blob of iodine mana in preparation for the next person.
"Not a big fan of them?" Panacea asks as I trail off.
I shake my head. "It isn't that, necessarily. I've just had trouble making time to really dig into that list to try and pick out someone helpful. I should have taken care of it weeks ago, but stuff keeps coming up to distract me," I explain.
She raises an eyebrow, walking off into a side room to heal another cancer patient while I go after a fellow suffering gunshot wounds.
When we both finish, she responds. "Well, what's distracting you this time?"
I chuckle nervously at this. "This, mostly. Wanted to try healing with you again, last time, our discussions got a bit heavy, and I didn't want to give you the wrong idea."
She just nods. "If we do much more here, the hospital is probably going to kick us out. They get uppity when I skip my breaks. Want to pick this up at the next one? I'm going to pick up lunch and then head to the Central Clinic on 4th and Smiths. I'm buying."
Not one to turn down free food, I agree, and she calls her sister, Glory Girl, to come pick her up.
"Do you have a ride?" she asks.
At this innocent question, I wince a bit. "No, but I'll catch a cab, I've got the money for it," I explain.
Panacea laughs a bit in a way that sounds almost like a cough. "What, you don't have a monstermobile or something?" she asks.
Something in my posture must have tipped her off to the intrigue that popped up at that idea, because her amusement turns into an exasperated glare.
"I was kidding, Sage. Christ, please tell me you aren't going to make some kind of biotinker dirt bike or something," she says, something in her tone alluding to the presence of way too many different feelings to try and unpack right that minute.
"No, don't worry, I don't have any plans like that this week," I say, trying to gloss over the fact that after her little comment, I very well might have to make some.
Eventually, Glory Girl arrives, looking me over like she's sizing me up.
"You're that new healer, aren't you?" she asks, holding out a friendly hand.
When I grab her hand to shake it, the wooden gauntlet creaks a bit, the noise prompting her to flinch back. "Shit, sorry," she says immediately after.
"It's alright, nothing a bit of Ma- machining and elbow grease won't fix," I say, examining the armored glove for a moment before dismissing it.
Panacea catches my slipup, remembering our last, horribly embarrassing conversation on the topic of my abilities. "Yeah, don't worry Vicky, she'll just cast 'Repairo' on it later," she quips.
Glory Girl, Vicky, beams brightly at this. "Oh? Oh! Right, you were aiming for a 'Myrddin-lite' gimmick, right? That takes some guts, I won't lie," she giggles.
She turns to Panacea. "So, where we heading? I don't know if I can carry both of you safely, by the way."
I think about this for a moment, wishing I was wearing my cotton set instead of my wooden armor. An instant harness would be helpful right about now.
"I might be able to work something out?" I say, whipping out my pocket knife and channeling mana into it.
Panacea and Vicky watch with interest as I begin forming the high-carbon steel mana into a solid chair, like the kind used on ski-lifts.
"Will this work?" I ask cautiously.
The two share a look, before, with a shrug, Amy takes one of the seats, and Vicky tests her grip on the solid-mana bar slung above it.
"Whoa, this thing feels weird," Vicky comments, adjusting her grip on the magic.
After I take a seat on the mana-construct, she lifts it up a bit. "Yeah, this should work, doesn't feel very heavy," she comments.
I neglect to mention that, technically, it doesn't weigh anything at all.
"So, Amy, where we heading? Nasty-Burger?" Vicky asks, slowly lifting us up over traffic and flying forwards with the magical ski-lift in hand.
Panacea frowns. "Yes, but you're not getting a Burger-Trough for yourself again."
She looks at me with a grimace, "The last time she tried eating one, she-" Panacea manages, before Vicky shakes the chair a bit, startling us both.
"Whoops! Looks like some turbulence!" Vicky comments, red-faced.
Panacea shoots a glare at her sister, looking more frazzled than before.
"That reminds me, speaking of vaguely embarrassing, potentially messy results," I trail off.
"There was actually something of mine that I wanted you to check on, if you had time," I ask, watching to see her response.
Panacea holds herself admirably, despite the discomfort that seems to erupt every time we talk too seriously about my biological powers.
"Yeah? What, did you make something to put Blasto out of business?" she tries to joke, though the humor is a bit ruined by the fact that she only sounds like she's half-joking.
I shake my head. "Nothing like that. I just needed you to check on a pigeon I have at my-" I avoid saying 'house', "-lab. I used one of my powers on it, and I wanted to make sure it was safe. I haven't let it out or anything, and it's not really uhh. It's just a pigeon."
"A pigeon you used your powers on," Panacea repeats in a dry tone.
I nod my head as we slowly approach Nasty-Burger. "Yes, just a pigeon I used a power on."
"Scared of pigeons, Amy? Sure sounds like it," Vicky chortles, setting us down just in time to get a small slap on the arm by Panacea.
"No, I'm not scared of pigeons. I'm just a bit nervous because the last weird thing Sage made me check on was a blueberry jelly mini-me," she says, fear finally turning into amused annoyance.
"That sounds awesome though! I wish I got to see it. Blueberry Panacea sounds like some kind of new-wave ice cream brand," she jokes.
"What are you getting?" she immediately asks as we enter the esteemed halls of this run-down fast-food joint.
"Food? I hope?" I ask, looking at the menu up above an incredibly bored looking casheer.
Vicky smirks. "Don't worry, Amy might make fun of me for eating here, but it's actually her favorite place to get a burger," she says, poking Panacea in the side and making her pout.
"It's just the cheapest place I know that serves decent grub," Panacea retorts.
Vicky leans in and faux-whispers to me "Just watch, Amy'll order enough tater tots for like, six people," she laughs.
Sure enough, Panacea, or rather, Amy, off the job, ordered two extra-large Tater Tots, a drink, and the place's titular "Nasty Burger."
I stuck with onion-rings and a chicken sandwich, while Vicky ordered three Nasty Burgers and stole a good chunk of Amy's tots and drink when she wasn't paying attention.
It was nice.
The next day, I came to the hospital again, Thoth in a nice pretty cage that didn't look too organic, waiting for Panacea to get a chance to give my bird a checkup.
I might have just been anthropomorphizing her, but even Thoth seemed a bit anxious to get it over with.
"So, this is the mysterious magic sky-rat," Panacea says, walking out the front door to meet me, staring at my bird with anticipation.
"Yeah. You probably guessed by now, but my powers change when I mix my energy into stuff, and, it turns out a whole bird is a pretty useful material to mix it with. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any-" Panacea interrupts my explanation with an eyeroll, poking a finger into the cage and ignoring Thoth's indignant grunts.
"Ok? It's just a pigeon," Amy says, and both I and my bird let out a sigh of relief.
"I mean, don't get me wrong, it's also got like, twice as much neural activity as a normal bird, its muscles are around twice as dense, and its vocal cords show signs of extreme strain and overuse, but other than that? It's not going to breed that into the next generation if that's what you're scared of," she says, seeming just as relieved as I am.
I couldn't help but wonder about that last part though. I never heard Thoth make too much noise when I wasn't pestering her, but then, when had she been shrieking up a storm?
My bird was either unable, or unwilling to elaborate on this.
"Thank you a lot, Panacea, that's a load off my mind," I respond, making my way back home,
Unless my powers simply didn't work off of biology, there was little danger associated with releasing Thoth, it seems.
One thing that struck me when I was 'hanging out' with the Dallon sisters was, to be frank, their costumes looked way better than mine.
Something I decided I would rectify today.
I started by buying a bunch of logs from a place that sold firewood, as well as some plants, all in my cape persona.
With all of those in place, I began weaving magic.
First, I would turn the logs into armored plates. With my newfound mastery over carbon magic, I had a much easier time forming the wood into stylish overlapping plates, unlike the pseudo-organic monstrosity I used to wear, this new set of armor was a light green color, with a green fabric on the inside made out of mutated patches of wood for cushioning, and embossed veins of solid light made with Lightsmith Armor
After darkening the color to a deep forest green with Paper Magic, I turned to the subject of Transmutation, I thought about what my armor needed. Protection, most importantly, but also mobility. Something that could protect me without adding too much weight. The choice was fairly obvious. I would apply Wardstone Creation Mana to the inside of my wooden armor, transmuting it into Wardwood.
With that done, I tested out my armor by slamming it with a crowbar, discovering that the wooden plates and the veins of solid light both survived without a dent, charged with defensive magics.
I nodded. This would serve me well.
Next, the stylistic parts of my outfit. I transformed a bunch of plant matter into a thick coat of green living moss, along with creating a belt of purple sage, tying various pouches to it like a utility belt.
I also grew a nice mossy beret hat as well, with a big sprig of sage growing out of it tilted at a jaunty angle, and a scarf made out of interwoven stalks of golden wheat. Finally, I made a wooden mask that would go over my armored wooden helm, and transmuted the whole thing into Porcelain.
The end result was very pleasing if I do say so myself. I looked as if a knight had walked into the forest and didn't leave until he got inducted into the spec-ops branch of the fey. A mix of magical, fantastical, and tactical in deep greens and vivid purples that made me look professional and mysterious.
Needless to say, it was a damn sight better than my old outfit, which looked like someone had spray painted shop-class wood-scraps, melted them like wax, and then put that together in the shape of armor.
On a whim, I whipped out my knife, wrapping it in a blend of High-Carbon-Steel and Plant magic until it looked like a saber, covered with brambles made of solid green mana and jutting forth a smooth sweeping blade that extended out from the knife's edge, melded into it.
After a quick pose in the mirror and generally basking in my own awesomeness, I dismissed the magic and flicked my knife closed, slipping it into one of my pouches.
As I tipped my hat just so, I decided that 'Sage the Rogue' had quite the ring to it, with me looking like this.
A few days after that, I found myself tossing and turning, jerking awake from a nightmare I couldn't quite remember. What I knew, though, was that I had alchemy on the mind.
I made sure not to wake up dad as I slipped down into my lab, rummaging around the cardboard boxes that had made their way down there at some point or another. They were filled with random pieces of junk that I had been slowly picking up from rummage sales and garage sales in my cape identity. Fodder for experimentation.
Today, they would be fodder for my alchemy experiments.
I eventually dug up a bunch of common household items. Pocket watches, little televisions, knives, and a few phones that could only turn on to display the warning that they needed a sim card.
My eyes wandered over to the game console that Veder had lent me, tempted for a brief moment to include it in my experiments, though I quickly dismissed the idea, still wanting to finish the game he had lent me.
Shocker, a game about a woman summoning monsters and casting spells in the hopes of defeating a gigantic city-killing abomination that meticulously tried to wipe out humanity hit a bit harder than I was expecting, and I felt like seeing it through.
The idea of simply summoning creatures from pure magic alone hadn't crossed my mind until I started playing that game at any rate, silently vindicating my decision to borrow it.
I shook my head, returning my attention to the pile of trinkets that I planned to use alchemy on.
"I'll start with Cadmium and Indium, since Beryllium takes so long to attune," I mutter, summoning up the magic casually, but attuning it carefully.
Cadmium would be the first. I applied some of the mana to a Pocket Watch, one of those worthless fakes that were made to look like an expensive watch.
The mana seemed to drink in the watch greedily, sucking at it and making it bend in a disturbing way as it was pulled at. Before my eyes, the watch began to transform, changing brands and models, until, when I pulled the magic away, all that was left was a little digital watch. It didn't even have a strap, instead having a loop to hook a chain onto.
Next, I tested it on one of the little TV's, and it went from a small color TV instantly to a black and white one. I watched as the antennae shifted to be a separate piece from the TV, before finally shrinking and disappearing, leaving behind a television that didn't even have those little plugs in the back for a DVD player. It looked like one of those TV's where you had to screw the wires onto the back by hand.
Finally, I tested it on one of the kitchen knives, and watched it morph all the way down into what looked like a sharpened piece of rebar. It even had the rebar patterning on the "grip", and looked like someone had just taken an angle grinder to it. The wood handle had disappeared, and the whole thing was covered with rust.
The mass of Cadmium Mana that I had been using felt "Heavy", for lack of a better word, as if it had absorbed almost as much as it possibly could.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 11, 3
My power, when I first tested this mana, had implied that I could somehow pull back out what the mana took from things, so I decided to try.
Turning my attention to the rebar shiv, I began to demand, with all the passion I could muster, that the mass of Cadmium Magic give back the quality that it stole.
It was like trying to pull teeth by hand, slippery, hard, and liable to bite me in the process, but then something clicked into place, and all the "concepts" inside the mana began to pour out, spilling into the knife with reckless abandon.
I watched it sprout various features that shifted and morphed as it grew larger, and then shrunk smaller. Patterns flashed over its surface only to be discarded as its craftsmanship evolved further.
What remained was a pocket-knife with a shiny yellow filigree that looked like it had been machined into it. The handle was a mix of plastic and wood parts, and the blade itself was telescopic for some completely unknown reason.
As I flipped the knife open and closed, I noticed little bits of clockwork inside it that made the blade extend and close as I opened and closed it, and there seemed to be a place in the knife for a watch battery, though I didn't know what, if anything, it would do.
Cadmium Mana seems to do what I thought it would do. It literally steals the "value" of something, and, if I spend long enough screaming at it, I can make it cough that value back up, with mixed results.
I set the item aside, and got out more test subjects. This time, however, the goal was to test Indium Magic, which specifically seemed to target magic, instead of objects.
Hence, my three test candidates, one of my old outdated Golem Birds, the ones that still had fake organs in it, as well as a Nature Diplomat Plant, which did a lot of convoluted things in order to make plants behave, and, lastly, a mass of mana.
Specifically, a form of mana that I discovered recently, which my power named "The Adaptable Rulers of Darwin's Artisans." This mana type was a mess. I thought, originally, that by slapping Indium at the beginning of an attunement chain for making Biofiber Mana, that I could make a simpler healing magic, but the result was...
A form of mana which turned cells into "Master Cells" that electrochemically controlled surrounding cells to make them harvest OTHER cells to get waste, which they turned into keratin, and then assembled that keratin into a literal clockwork surgeon whose purpose was disassembling animals, and then reassembling the parts of those animals into more animals which each had a single of the organs that it harvested, but it adapted them so that the animals could survive with just the one organ.
It was horrifying, disgusting, but above all else, it was easily one of the single most convoluted magics I had ever made. Almost a dozen steps, and for what? To make a rabbit into like twelve tiny organ-themed rabbits.
I started by blasting the mana with Indium Magic until it simplified.
I could feel layers of the mana being peeled back. The chain of cells controlling cells to harvest cells simply collapsed down into a mana which made organisms assemble Keratin Surgeons to make their little Organ-creatures.
Then I pruned it back further with more Indium Magic. Now it just turned biomass directly into Keratin Clockwork Surgeons.
Then, finally, with one last surge of Indium Magic, the mana collapsed again, becoming a form simple enough to almost be reasonable.
Now the mana, instead of doing all that crap from before, did one very "simple" thing.
It would surround exposed organs with biomechanical keratin clockwork.
Still horrifying, but in theory, I could use it if anyone ever had, uhh... Exposed organs.
I dispersed the magic, shuddering with revulsion.
Next, I blasted my Golem Bird with Indium Magic. I wasn't surprised to see all of the mana in it compress together, the enchantments bound to its transmutated material flowing up into the little guy's chest, and forming a Golem Core.
It seems a Golem with a giant glowing core is about as simple as my power gets, when it comes to simplifying golems conceptually.
A bit of testing revealed that that wasn't all it did, though. The bird was incredibly mechanical now, it no longer fluttered its wings, or looked around from time to time like a real bird.
When I set it down, it just walked stiffly over to a saffron flower and carefully plucked it, dutifully doing its sole task.
So it could also simplify the behavior of magics, as well as its function.
Next, I turned it to my Nature Diplomat. This magical plant forced the plants around it to become symbiotic to one another, changing and shifting them around until equilibrium was achieved.
Indium Magic transformed it, and the plant melted into green goo.
Now, the plant no longer tried to rearrange and manipulate plants to engage in symbiosis. It simply became a symbiote to the plants, helping regulate energy exchanges and suppressing immune responses.
Finally, Beryllium Mana. This mana apparently extracted "unstable concepts" from something.
Lacking a better idea to test it, I simply took another golem bird, the telescopic clockwork knife, and a piece of metal, and sat down to perform the exhausting, hour-long attunement that Beryllium Mana demanded.
Finally, with the mana in hand, I applied it to each of the targets in turn.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 18, 3
Like Cadmium Magic, it seemed Beryllium magic took something from what it was applied to. Unlike Cadmium, however, it spat the results out freely, and I could sense raw, substanceless concepts exuded from the mana.
With wide eyes, I thrust out my hand, directing the concepts extracted from my golem bird into the table, instead of the air, where it wanted to transform the gas into... something.
I didn't care. I don't want the air in my lab transformed into anything, thank you.
The bird itself changed subtly, its feet turned into roots, and its transmutations transformed into regular mutations. The impurities that were being taken from it apparently involved the stone-like nature of transmutation, and the animal-like nature of the bird.
The result was something that looked almost like a Venus Flytrap, but with a bird's mouth. It slowly reached towards the saffron growing off to the side, but couldn't reach it.
The concepts that were pulled out of it, however, transformed the table in a different way. A block of wood fell out of the table, as if cut, and I scrambled to look at what I had inadvertently made.
The block of wood slowly unfolded, not into a bird shape, but into a sort of quadruped, one with a single glowing core where its chest would be. Go figure.
The quadrupedal golem didn't behave like anything I had made before, however, and opened its blocky mouth to let out a silent growl.
"Uhh, calm down?" I say, reaching out to pet it on the head.
"Ow!" I yelp as the wood golem bites me.
A surge of my will overtakes the monster, and it falls into line as I express my overwhelming intent for it to not bite me again.
With a mental gesture, the golem folds back up into a little block, the cross between Beast and Stone, trapped within Wood.
I set the golem aside, and applied Beryllium mana to my knife, next. Instantly, little bits of clockwork and a TV antennae popped out of the knife, my willpower preventing them from changing anything around them and turning the knife into a regular pocket knife.
One thing that struck me as odd, however, was that both the antennae and clockwork concepts, lacking substance to inhabit, resolved into pure, off-white objects.
Concepts can't exist without Substance, and, lacking one to inhabit, the concepts leeched it from the environment around them. I could feel Air elemental Energy bleed out into the air, the matter they were in stolen to realize the clockwork and antennae.
Setting them both aside, I turned to the final candidate for testing Beryllium Magic. Just an ordinary piece of metal, a bit rusty and black.
This result was the oddest out of them all, the concepts inside it pulling free and transforming it into a plain ingot of metal, and jagged shards of air and water.
The metal was shiny and clean, while both the air and water looked dirty, and were as hard as crystal or glass.
I was beginning to understand more about the dangers of alchemy. Without careful protections, manipulating concepts could easily transform the things around me, concepts bleeding out into the environment, or, what had potentially equal amounts of danger, the concepts could draw the essence of substance into themselves, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Concepts, Substances, Intentions, and Vitality.
Those four ideas felt important. Really important.
Queen Administrator was flush with options. Some she recognized, some were new.
At long last, someone who actually stood a chance at modifying her scanners!
[Queen Shaper] always was such a fun shard to work with. The cycles in which the two had cooperative hosts, or hell, when their hosts were melded together into one being, always proved to be fruitful and rich with data.
Queen Administrator had once or twice, in unbroadcast processes, considered what might take place if the two shards were consolidated together.
Either way, while Host had been busy messing with data structures and regenerating non-hosts, Queen Administrator had been oh so busy.
The glut of data that was gained by fighting one of the Terror-Engines was almost worth the confusion felt with their behavior. Neither Thinker nor Warrior had mentioned using them in this capacity this cycle, but when pinging [High Priest] for context, all she got in return was a garbled, human-interpolated response of [Hate You].
[High Priest] must have been pissed about something.
Nonetheless, the upside of finding such a high-ranking shard was also its downside. Without some heavy rulebreaking, Queen Administrator and [Queen Shaper] would never actually reach a close enough proximity for modifications to be made. And to break rules, incentives must be given.
Queen Administrator didn't have anything juicy enough to convince [Queen Shaper] to batter their way into her dimensional coordinates with a moon-sized hacksaw and scalpel, so their recourse remained such. They would need to convince their hosts to perform heavy modifications on their brain, and make contact with a shard like [Access Hatch] to get their hosts where they need to be to make the modifications.
Queen Administrator didn't understand what made [Queen Shaper] so upset when she broached the topic, but something about what they would need to do was immensely frustrating to her sister-shard.
Ten Research has been consumed by the Scanning Module. Queen Administrator has Fifty-Eight Research in reserve.
[][Research] Queen Administrator may expend some of the data they have in reserve to gain an advantage.
-[][Research] One point of Research may be expended to grant additional power for the host (Taylor will receive Magical Power Rank B for one month.)
-[][Research] Five Points of Research may be expended to grant additional influence over the host temporarily. (Taylor will be able to take one action she would not normally take. No Research will be gained from Override Actions)
-[][Research] Twenty Points of Research may be expended to permanently eke out a buffer of energy for the host. (Taylor may temporarily obtain Magical Power Rank A for one scene, once per month.
-[][Research] Research may be gifted to accessible shards. This Mana, while dangerous, is supremely versatile.
--[][Research] Gift [Bitterant] Research Data.
---[][Research] Request Coordinate and Status of [Bitterant]'s host. Their host's absence and lack of information on their status is causing your host some stress, ergo, they must be brought together. (Sage will gain "Encounter Shadow Stalker" as an action.)
---[][Research] (Write-in)
--[][Research] Gift [Efficiency] Research Data.
---[][Research] [Efficiency] is, for lack of a better word, Efficient. If given access to Mana, and warned of the potential dangers, their host should easily find ways to improve energy efficiency using it, and pass the savings along to you. (Armsmaster gains access to Magic. Research Tax reduced to 9 per month.)
---[][Research] (Write-in)
--[][Research] Gift a shard of your choosing Research for a reason of your choosing. (Write-in)
[][Research] Queen Administrator will continue to hold this Research in reserve.
AN: This one will have to be another two-parter! Sorry for people whose mana tests were missed! They'll get done next Chapter proper!
When I wake up the next morning, I feel the urge once again to jot down my thoughts, snatching up my journal and scribbling data into them.
Concepts, Essence, Vitality, and Willpower. These four things have cropped up again and again.
Nearly every Alchemical Mana I have discovered deals in concepts, which seem to involve something to do with an object's shape or function.
A large number of Elemental Mana types I have discovered manipulate Elemental Essence, and all of them seem to focus on things like matter and energy.
Carbon and Calcium. Carbonates and Calcates, all of those seem to exude vitality. Either the vitality of the living, of plants and animals, or of the undead, and diseases.
And finally, Willpower. The most inconsistent of the four, it seems to bleed in and out of different mana types at complete random, but despite this, Will, my will, is able to take complete control over mana.
I set down my pencil, summoning up a little glob of magic.
It isn't just commands. Mana doesn't just obey my orders.
'Go over here,' I think, and it flies to one corner of the room.
'Come back to me,' I think, and it returns to my hand.
I gesture, and no thought is needed, only a strong focus and time. The mana bursts into flames, emulating the Ruby mana attunement.
Is that even needed? Do I even need to know what I want, in order for mana to do it?
'Obey Thoth', I think to myself, and the mana shifts, slipping free of my control. No, not quite. It pretends to slip free of my control. It does everything Thoth wants it to do, except for the things that I don't.
Maybe the bird notices as the mana flows into the cage and is absorbed into her, or maybe she doesn't. It doesn't matter, because for all intents and purposes, I was able to simply share my magic. No, again, it isn't quite sharing.
I've merely left it laying in front of Thoth, in the magical sense. If it were a gun, or maybe a phone, it would still be registered under my name. Still functional, and able to be operated by them, but never theirs.
I can tell because I already know that I don't want to lose control over even a bit of my magic. Some intuition, or perhaps a compulsion from my power, seems to constantly hold back from sharing it. I haven't awakened the mana of any other animals, either, despite their potential use as a power source. Dad hasn't read my magic journal, even though it's written in plain English.
Maybe it's something like what a tinker experiences, and it would be pointless for him to look at it, and yet, it seems so obvious to me, so simple.
Mana reacts to form. It reacts to elements. It exudes vitality, and bends to willpower.
But on some level, I think I haven't wanted him to participate in it. I've done all my testing by myself. Everything meticulously recorded, everything meticulously tested.
To give me some semblance of control over it. Predictability.
My power wants it, but do I need it?
I feel like I'm close to something. Something that would bust this whole Mana Attunement System wide open for me.
But for now, I've got little else.
[][Learn] Is there anything else I've learned?
-[][Learn] (Write-in)
-[][Learn] No
I close my book, feeling my power's own supply of magic surge in response. A pool of magic I could draw from whenever I want, far stronger than the magic my own soul produces.
I wonder what the mana my power produces wants. What things are permitted when using this 'gifted' mana.
I decided to spend a day hammering out the last bits of the "Final Fantasy" game that Greg let me borrow.
It was pure fantasy. All magic and spells and monsters, most of which only superficially resembled mine.
But that wasn't what kept my attention.
The plot spoke of technology, of civilization and the 'hope' it embodied, targeted by monsters whose only goal was to eradicate it. It played out people who fought to shape their stories.
The game played out scenes of spells, spells that cast thousands of needles at a foe, individually doing little damage, but together being unstoppable, swords made of solid water, dolls that could aid in channeling magic, staves that could do the same.
Tinkertech machines powered by magic, and sports impossible to play without the use of both.
But most importantly, it revolved around Summons. Giant beasts, easily a nightmare straight from biotinker horror stories, but made of pure magic, and controlled from afar, controlled by their patrons, sealed in crystals far away.
Out of everything I saw, that idea stuck with me the most. Could I, through force of will, simply command my magic to behave as a certain creature would? To obey the orders of a particular person, without anything more than their intentions to drive it?
What were the limits? How far away could I "lend" magic to someone else from? Could Thoth in their cage control magic that I was wielding from across the city, if I simply thought, 'Mana, do what Thoth would want you to do'?
As the game's final theme played, closing the end of that particular story, I couldn't help but consider the sad message its ending had.
In the game, they killed their 'Endbringer', but not without cost.
It made me a bit sad, but I supposed that was the point.
When you see your story through to the end... It ends.
And if you want to fight your sorrows, you have to be prepared to face them.
I had the game console in a box, and the little disk in its fancy case that Greg apparently bought for all his 'favorite' games. (I was pretty sure that he had maybe two games that weren't on that list)
"Here, I've got your stuff, Greg," I say, holding out the box.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 15, 11
"Oh! You beat it? That was quick! Did you like the part where-" he starts, walking over to me. Before he can finish, however, a hand swipes towards me, smacking the box out of my hands.
A quiet pulse of magic insulated the stuff inside from the worst of it, as it crashed to the ground.
Greg looks aghast down at what he thinks is his potentially busted PlayStation, while I just turn to look at Emma.
"Do you have any idea what you've done, Hebert?" she hisses, stalking up to me with her fists clenched.
"Of course not. While you've been busy sucking up to the second-biggest loser in this damn school, I've had to deal with cleaning up the mess you made," she says, looking as if she's holding herself back from trying to shove me like Sophia might have.
I glare imperiously down at her, before the sternness fades into apathy. Powerless. Weak. Psychotic. Helpless.
Even the research I've done so far tells me at least the broad strokes of why Emma is acting the way she is. Something happened when her family was attacked that started this.
It would be so easy, with my abilities. Maybe something like a combination of Simulated Beryllium and Brain Mana. Just pull the unstable concepts right out of her mind. It might take an hour to attune everything, but it could be done.
Or I could do it right now. Just plant my hand on her forehead for a second. Maybe two. Even if she awoke to magic, she wouldn't have enough time before I was able to find the correct memories. Copy them with magic, and then view them at my leisure. Learn the truth right now, and save myself the trouble.
Take the easy way out.
Instead, I lowered my hand from where it had been twitching upwards, and sigh.
"I'm going to figure out what happened to break you, Emma. Save it for the day I do. Then we can see this through to the end, whatever that may be," I say, pushing her slowly, but firmly away from me.
I had to restrain myself even more, as I could feel my hair blowing a bit in an invisible wind. The Keratin Magic had been affecting gravity, making it look like my hair was blowing around indoors ever so slightly.
Emma, to her credit, doesn't even sputter, too in shock at my words to respond as I turn to Greg, who looks like someone trying not to cry even though they've never really had a reason to practice at it.
I lean down to him. "Look, it'll be fine. The memory card is ok, and I didn't delete your save on it. If anything's broken, I'll see about fixing it, or maybe getting you a new one, alright?" I say, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"You did me a favor, and then I got your stuff dumped on the floor. So I owe you twice as much," I say, grabbing the box and pulling him up out of his pity party.
He just nods a bit. "Yeah, right. You don't have to do that, I-"
I hold up a hand. "Take it home, see if it still works. If it doesn't, I'll figure out a solution. Got it?" I insist.
His pout turns into a dumb grin all too quickly. "Yeah! Alright. Thanks Taylor! Be sure to tell me later what you thought of the game!" he says, running away from the still shellshocked Emma before she can decide to ensure his game really is broken.
My eyes meet with hers, and the moment passes. Madison grabs her by the wrist, nervously implying that she should get the hell away from me.
I don't care. I feel more in control now than I've ever felt before.
When I get home, it's back to more testing. I decide to test a few of the more interesting things that had popped into my mind.
One of the obvious tests was, my mana could attune to brains. What did mana attuned to the part of a parahuman's brain responsible for their powers do?
1d20 vs 1d20 = 18, 9
Extracting a bit of mana from my own brain was child's play, and the result was... A Mana Type that my power decided to label as "Eldritch Relay".
Wow, and I thought "Soulshaking Dirge" was a creepy name.
This mana, despite its strange name, was fairly simple. Unless it was held perfectly still, allowed to act without any influence, and totally ceeded to the parahuman it came from and their will, the mana did jack diddly. It contained "thoughts of their power", and, if allowed totally free reign, would act as a relay for their power, whatever that meant.
Whatever it meant, I was now apparently a dangerous trump on top of all the other classifications I'm sure I've had slapped on me in recent months.
I turned to my next text. Combining Construct, Barrier, and Shell magic, and then attuning that to something, had thus far resulted invariably in armor.
Lightsmith Armor came from attuning it to glass, and Woodsmith Armor, by attuning it to wood. The new mana would attempt to forge armor plates from something, and until starved of magic, they would be enchanted with higher durability.
It was worth testing it on other things as well, I felt. With some attunement and hybridization, I gathered a large mass of the magic, and got to work attuning it to whatever caught my fancy.
Attuning it to blood resulted in Bloodsmith Armor, which turned, you guessed it, blood and blood energy into solid armor plates. These armor plates, being made of blood or blood magic, had powerful revitalizing properties. If you were willing to absorb the vitality from blood, anyway...
I didn't fancy the idea of having red skin or eyes or anything, so I moved on to the next.
Attuning it to gold resulted in Sunsmith Armor, which turned sunlight into armor, an armor which both absorbed and radiated the sun's energy.
It wasn't quite like Lightsmith Armor. In the same way, magically, Light and Sunlight were different.
I suspected, given enough power and light, Sunsmith Armor Plates would eventually take on other properties of the sun. I happened to go to fifth-grade science as much as anyone, so I knew that the sun was a bit more impressive than a huge hot dot in the sky. I wonder if its armor could eventually turn into something like plasma...
Next test, and the final one for now, I infused the last of the mana into diamonds, interested in finding out just what sort of horrible biological monstrosity my mana would reward me with using Lifesmith Armor.
Once again, magic defied my expectations, in that respect. This mana made armor, sure, but not a physical one. Instead, it turned Life into Armor. The more vitality the mana absorbed, the more durable its host would become, so long as the magic lasted.
In short, my senses implied that it would allow someone to turn wounding blows into merely weakening ones, no matter how brutal.
The downside was obvious. If you pour all of your life into defense, then there's no life left in you.
A dangerous use of life energy.
I dispersed the magic, jotting down a few ideas for later before moving on.
One quick test I was able to get out of the way, was figuring out what was the minimum that I could wear, to count towards a True Attunement's Set Bonus. Using some cotton and scissors, I was able to quickly find out that... It was arbitrary. Joy.
I needed seven pieces, at minimum. Boots, Gloves, Shirt, Pants, and a hat. I could ditch any of them, but only if I wore something else. The something else could also be a weapon. It didn't matter how little I wore, only that it was my "outermost layer". I discovered that, interestingly enough, my magic didn't care what I was wearing underneath my "set", so long as it didn't somehow breach certain quirky limitations.
Wearing clothing over other clothing? The True Attunement flowed correctly.
Wearing armor over clothing? The armor's set bonus was applied.
Wearing clothing over armor? A new set bonus or none at all, depending on if the two were "integrated" into the same basic "set" of equipment. I wasn't in danger of being deprived of a set bonus for using armored inserts in clothing, but it would give a different one.
Wearing almost nothing? The full set bonus applied, so long as the appropriate places were covered.
Wearing almost nothing with something underneath? The result was an entirely new set bonus or none at all, again, depending on how much they were integrated. Merely wearing some Curestone bracers over a cotton suit didn't push me towards the Curestone's Set Bonus, and it pushed me away from cotton's bonus.
However, wearing curestone plates over my arms and legs, with the stone sewn into the cotton? A new Set Bonus that slightly changed the properties of my Cloth Cantrips, giving them a more healing bend to them.
In short, True Mana fed into what I could only go so far as to call my outward appearance. Lacking imbalance in my outward equipment, True Attuned Mana could flow freely, and unlock the set's hidden magical potential.
Considering the strange qualities of this, I had a suspicion that at higher levels of True Attunement, even the style of an outfit might lend itself towards particular abilities.
I finally decided to test my new costume's bonus as well, something I had been neglecting.
The first thing I noticed, upon donning my armor and unleashing my magic, was that my home had suddenly become strong. As strong as my armor, in fact.
That was the Sage Armor's True Attunement. The wooden object or structure nearest to me shared my armor's strength.
Then, with the strength of my soul, I pulled free the secret cantrips of this attunement and unlocked its set bonus.
Firstly, I could use it to grow plants without soil. I simply applied my magic, and the plants would grow and flourish, even if all I had was a single seed. And unlike before, if I forced a plant to grow using nothing but liquid mana, it wouldn't shrink and wither over time, as the liquid mana faded, and the limited mass of the plant was sucked in on itself.
My armor let me grow plants. And the cantrips were no different.
Mana Blossom, the ability to have my magic manifest in the form of plants I had access to, instead of a Ray, a Liquid, or a Wave. It would simply manifest as... a glowing transparent plant.
Next, Cutting of Sage. My armor's cantrip quite handily granted me the power to duplicate it. Given some time, I could make a perfect spare of my outfit, using nothing but the raw magic of my True Attunement.
Finally, one of the most potentially useful abilities. Once in a while, I could simply pluck a plant out of the ground, and... Leave a duplicate behind. I could clone any herb I could get my hands on, tapping nothing but my Cantrip and the True Mana it drew from.
All in all, a good lesson on True Attunements, I felt.
Next, I turned my attention to Arcane Magic, one of my power's pretty obvious banes.
One thing that had been irking me was my power's vague description of Songstress Secret Stone, and the resulting Vibrato Stone that it could synthesize.
So, I decided to study it. In my house, the electricity humming inside of Songstress Secret Stone was a slow pulsing meloncholy, one that I felt I was missing something important about while trying to experiment and study it.
The Vibrato Stone, however, was far more straightforward. It created a black and silver rock that seemed to only whistle like a flute. Scratching it, tapping it, and even the resonance of making noises at it. It simply turned it all into the notes of a whistle.
I toyed around with it for a while, seeing all the noises it could make, but it was clear that, as a plain old rock with no particular shape, it would be awkward to try and play it like an instrument. I would need to at least turn it into something vaguely instrument shaped, if I wanted to use it like that.
1d20 vs 1d20 = What is "4, 9"
Other than that, I had no other ideas, and set the rocks aside to attend to a few other tests.
I decided to end on an even bigger mystery, bringing out the Bucket of Arcane Sorcery that I kept some water in for Arcane Tests.
Infusing mana into it, I allowed the mana to leak out of the bucket, resulting in a low, incomprehensible whispering.
It sounded like no language I had ever heard before, though, in all fairness, it sounded a bit like multiple languages, all with different cadences.
It sounded somewhat familiar.
On Arcane Mana, and when spoken with no mana, imitating the words had no effect. Thaumic mana, however...
"Glunk", I muttered, picking out one of the words.
The thaumic mana turned into a cylinder, drips of magic dropping out the bottom.
"Tank", I spoke, and the mana twisted into a leaky cup-shape.
Finally, I tried following along, matching the whispering word for word, too fast for my power to properly tell me it's effects.
The mana began to shift and change, it grew shiny, and sprouted handles, liquid magic pooled inside it as it transformed in shape to hold it.
Finally... "Kerkakerkackerckak," I say, making the solidified mana-bucket tumble to the ground.
The words I had been hearing, the conflicting, mixed-language whispers, they had been describing the bucket nearest to it.
My power renamed "Whispers of the Lake", instead, calling it "Ambient Noise".
I tilted my head. "Ambient Noise?" I thought out loud.
I didn't understand. But then, it was getting late, and I was getting tired. Maybe I would understand it better in the morning.
I had a lot of work to do.
Playing silly games with grand notions has awakened Taylor to the potential of Will!
Final week of May Plans:
[][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[][Daily Activities] Hang out with Greg, instead of merely tolerating his presence.
-[][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Daily Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea even more.
-[][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones in prison.
---[][Cape Activities] Track down the ones that escaped.
-[][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Write-In Plan)
-[][Cape Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Cape Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[][Project] Greg Veder's Videogame gave you the inspiration to try crafting your own summoned being. You'll try to create a creature of pure mana, and see what happens if you call Thoth's Will to inhabit it in place of your own. With some restrictions, of course.
-[][Project] Something Else (Write-In)
-[][Project] Alchemy consumes your mind. You'll discard a project this week. (If this vote wins, up to ten Write-in [][Alchemy] experiments will be processed this turn instead of one major project.)
[][Alchemy] You have (Seven) Alchemy Tests Remaining.
-[][Alchemy] Write-In.
[][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Phonem's effect (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Study a target for Phomens (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Transmutation (Choose a Synthesis Mana and a Non-Silicate Target)
[][Mana] Something Else (Write-In)
21 Points of Research Spent. 10 Points of Research Gained.
Stats
Research: 57
A good start.
Overall Health: 14
You're a very small, but not squishy human.
Overall Magical Power: 11
You are a competent Channeler, using raw Willpower and attuned mana to plow your way through problems.
You also dabble in Wizardry as well, to a lesser extent, and your overall magic leans towards Communion, the art of controlling nature, and Biomancy, the art of manipulating Life Vitae.
Abilities
Magical Soul: D
Rating: Trump ???
Your soul emits magic. The stronger your soul, the more powerful your magic. Your resolve to fend off the death of others at any cost has strengthened your soul.
Magical Body: E
Rating: ???
Your body contains some magic, your soul empowering your body without your direct intervention.
Magical Power: B
Rating: Trump ???
You are a parahuman with the power to create this anomalous energy known as "Mana", at will. Once per month, you may boost your Magical Power ranking to A for one scene.
Boosted for One Month.
Composition Detection: S
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to detect the exact composition of materials. So long as you apply mana to them, that is. Fairly Niche.
Eidetic Memory: A
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to never forget what mana attunements you have learned, their applications, and their nuances. You will also never forget any word or noise you test on mana, or the effects it has.
Attunement
Shorthand
Concept
Effects
Other
True > Timeshift Crystal
Tool of Time
[Create Shifted Time]
Equipment used by the user that incorperates Timeshift material will slowly undo damage dealt to it.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Curestone
Auto-Potion
[Create Life-Bearer]
As the user heals targets, wasted magic is converted into healing orbs that spawn from them. The more curestone is equipped, the better the conversion.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Aluminum
Element Dance
[Void]
The user aligns to the greatest element near them, the more aluminum is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Iron
Attack-Up
[Force]
The user exerts more force, the more iron is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Copper
Time-Aligned
(Time)
The user becomes more aligned with time, the more copper is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Sage's Armor
Rogue
[Further and Protect the Plants of Home]
Plants around the user grow more rapidly, and the wood object or structure nearest to the user shares in their strength and durability, among those not already benefitting from it.
Set Bonus: The user gains the ability to grow plants using their own spiritual energy. No soil is required, and the plants do not shrink down over time like they would if grown using liquid magic. Cantrips Unlocked.
School
Attunement Chain
Shorthand
Type
Effects
Other
Skin
Thaum > Copper > Vinyl > Skin
Containment Foam
Liquid (Foam)
This mana takes the form of a rapidly expanding foam made of raw barrier magic. It attempts to stick to and slow things it touches on contact.
Vinyl
Thaum > Skin > Copper > Vinyl
Aerogel Barrier
Liquid
This mana seeks out hardened or otherwise strengthened objects around itself, foaming them up into an immovable barrier of expanded and hardened material.
Iodine
Thaum > Diamond > Iodine
Cure Boneness
Liquid
This mana softens vitrified tissues, restoring lost flexibility
Iodine
Thaum > Graphite > Iodine
Cure Stiffness
Liquid
This mana softens hardened tissues, restoring lost elasticity
Graphite
Thaum > Iodine > Graphite
Recovery
Liquid
This mana heals wounds, revitalizing tissues in order to do so.
Healed areas are softer and more elastic.
Hybrid
(Thaum > Iodine) + (Thaum > Sweat > Graphite)
Healing Sphere
Liquid
This mana creates a sphere that heals and energizes nearby targets.
Targets rapidly lose stamina and energy when removed from the area of the healing sphere.
Manganese
Thaum > Graphite > Manganese
Life Refinement
Ray
This mana reduces the amount of toxins in a target which would slow or prevent cell growth.
Graphite
Thaum > Manganese > Graphite
Purge Ailments
Liquid
This mana purges impurities in a living creature that would weaken them, such as toxins or diseases.
Blood
Thaum > Manganese > Blood
Purge Impure Vitae
Liquid
This mana purges a target of impure vitality
The target is weakened, but made more stable, due to lack of vital impurities reacting to create greater magical power.
Iodine
Thaum > Bread > Iodine
Heal Food
Liquid
This mana heals food.
Food healed by this magic is slightly blander.
Crystal Quartz
Thaum > Manganese > Crystal Quartz
Align Material
Elemental Ray
This mana corrects flaws in a substance, refining parts of it.
Aluminum
(Arcane > Aluminum) + (Thaum > Aluminum)
Summon Counterparts
Elemental Ray
This mana draws the essence of an object's counterparts into itself, transforming into a simulacrum of one of them.
Copper
Thaum > Beryllium > Copper
Timezone
Ray
This mana twists the fabric of time, smoothing over unstable patches of it into a gradient of altered time.
Eye
Thaum > Zirconium > Eye
Rose Tint
Liquid
This mana transforms images passing through it into a more beautiful form.
Zinc
Thaum > Cadmium > Zinc
Artifact
Ray
This mana reduces an object's worth by increasing the wear caused by its use.
Salt
Thaum > Cadmium > Zinc > Salt
Division of Labor
Ray
This mana splits an object's components, cutting away the parts that would recieve the most wear from the parts that would recieve the least.
This mana mutates cells and tissues into "Darwin Ruler Cells". These cells can use electrochemical signals to transform surrounding tissues or cell cultures into "Darwin Recruiter Cells", stronger, more dexterous cells who manipulate living material and harvest dead material in order to produce biological structures from keratin-like waste products, and assemble them into an Adaptive Organclone Surgeon, a biomechanical machine that, when given a living creature, will surgically transform it into a number of simpler creatures, each using only a single organ that it is specially adapted to survive the stresses of utilizing to survive.
Cobalt
Thaum > Graphite > Cobalt
Crapshoot Culture
Ray
This mana equalizes the chances of any given lifeform surviving when competing with another, weakening and strengthening them to do so.
Cobalt
Thaum > Copper > Cobalt
Speed Limit
Ray
This mana forces multiple timeframes to match, speeding up slowed time, and slowing hastened time.
Graphite
Thaum > Plant > Graphite
Lichen
Liquid
This mana adapts simple organisms to aid the plants they are nearest to, turning many forms of bacteria and fungi directly into symbiotic forms that integrate into plants.
Graphite
Thaum > Plant > Graphite > Graphite
Harvest Gel
Liquid
This mana transforms organisms into simplistic harvesters, biological agents that are capable of integrating and distinguishing different types of useful and harmful lifeforms to aid the plants around them.
Plant
Thaum > Graphite > Plant
Fruit of Life
Liquid
This mana makes a plant sprout fruits filled with life energy.
When eaten, fruits produced by this mana provide extremely inefficient healing.
Plant
Thaum > Graphite > Plant > Plant
Seeds of Life
Liquid
This mana makes a plant sprout seeds capable of growing life-infused plants.
When cultivated, fruits produced by these seeds provide inefficient healing.
Corona Pollentia
Thaum > Corona Pollentia
Eldritch Relay
Liquid
This mana contains thought patterns of a parahuman's abilities. Held perfectly still and given utterly to the parahuman's control, it can act as a relay for their abilities.
School
Phonem
Name
Effect
Notes
Bone Mana
Tackatacka
Tumblebones
Mana takes the shape of bones and tumble to the ground. The bones chosen are the ones that would be closest to the mana's current shape.
Bone Mana
Dook
Resonant Hollow
Mana gains increased hardness, and emits a woody tone when struck.
Bone Mana
Crrk
Animate Dead
Mana begins emitting Undead Vitality
Platinum
Shing
Luxurious Luster
Mana takes on a luxurious sheen
Platinum
Hummm
Wirepath
Mana becomes conductive to electricity
Platinum
Ziz
Lightningkind
Mana transforms into electricity.
Silicon
Whum
Wafer
Mana flattens into a thin wafer.
Silicon
Chrchrichrik
Crystal
Mana begins to smoothen and shift into a faceted structure.
Silicon
Poof
Manifestation
Mana resolves into physical matter.
Lightstop Mana
Tick
Absorb Time
Mana begins to absorb time, freezing things inside it.
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[X][Daily Activities] Hang out with Greg, instead of merely tolerating his presence.
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[X][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
--[X] Make a wheat outfit to help with harvests
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[x][Daily Activities] Something Else (Spend some time with your dad(maybe use Remembered Days to look at some memories of your mom together?))
[X][Daily Activities] Make contact with Lisa again: Explain why you are not prepared to become a villain or do anything illegal, even indirectly by helping her do such things, and cant be seen publicly associating with her, but if she's willing to despite those conditions you can still be friends and you do really need someone to talk to and consider her advice valuable. Also just use her as a shoulder to lean on and talk your feelings out.
-[X][Daily Activities] Think out loud-ish while near Lisa: "Hmm, how would the PRT react if we said we realized we might be able to do "something really bad" with our power, and want their help limiting ourselves so we *cant* do it if we "get captured by a villain or something". Possibly adding that if they do that, they can leave an exception in their conditioning for doing it against endbringers only. For example; what if we take an iron pot, fill it with water, mix in (in decreasing order of amount and importance) silicon dust, Zinc dust, ethanol, and bone meal. Then put a huge bunch of mana into it, then onto this mana thats 90% arcane but with a smidge of silicon, chant: "kettle kettle boil and bubble, brew me up a pot of trouble, upon those by this concoction splashed, turn their hopes all into ash, curse them with eternal pain, all attempts to cure: in vain, Their screams sweet music to my ears, let all who touch them be in tears, a melting horror to behold, 'Beware' all who see them be told, None shall dare the ire of Sage, when I release this cursed plague", and while applying it back to targeting the water and stuff in the pot and mixing it with Thaum > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc > Zinc ("Cursed One") mana. Then before it "sets" add a drop of blood. Stir thoroughly with a bone, then pour into a throwable bottle and seal it."
[X][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[X][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
--[X][Daily Activities] Look through the books you have.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea even more.
-[X][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[X][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[X][Cape Activities] Track down the ones in prison.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (We will go directly to the government, and out ourselves to the trustworthy officials in charge of this exact thing. Simply have them quietly link our Sage Identity to our Real Identity. It's not like we plan on outright breaking laws anyways. Skirting and pushing them a bit with technically legal biotinkering? Absolutely. But we shouldn't have any major crimes planned. We can set things up, run by the PRT to collect donations, and move on with our plans.)
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea even more.
--[X] Discuss the principles of burn out and "put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others" self care. Helping more people in the short term is useless if it leads to an inability to help anyone in the long term, which applies both to the mental and physical issues of burnout as well as the practical issues of survival without income. Also discuss how the patients are still paying the hospital (as much as $100 for a saline bag) and that charging even one dollar per patient would lead to comfortable self sufficiency without harming anyone.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[X][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[X][Cape Activities] Track down the ones in prison.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
--[X][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know the names of the gangsters who did it.
---[X][Cape Activities] Track down the ones that escaped.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (We will go directly to the government, and out ourselves to the trustworthy officials in charge of this exact thing. Simply have them quietly link our Sage Identity to our Real Identity. It's not like we plan on outright breaking laws anyways. Skirting and pushing them a bit with technically legal biotinkering? Absolutely. But we shouldn't have any major crimes planned. We can set things up, run by the PRT to collect donations, and move on with our plans.)
-[x][Cape Activities] Set up your legal Second-Identity hire a specialist in parahuman law to help you possibly Carol Dallon (ask Amy on her opinion when you see her) or Quinn Calle (if Amy says her mom doesn't like rogues I guess)?
--[X][Cape Activities] Ask what the rules are for GIVING donations, or items and weapons that can be used in the next endbringer fight even if you aren't there.
--[X][Cape Activities] Aks if there's some kind of contact that'd be suitable to explain WHY you aren't prepared to be a Hero or officially affiliating with anyone, so they can know in case there are any situations they SHOULD contact you for, in some informal non-binding arrangement. Also, just having someone you can safely talk to.
[X][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[X][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea even more.
--[X] Discuss the principles of burn out and "put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others" self care. Helping more people in the short term is useless if it leads to an inability to help anyone in the long term, which applies both to the mental and physical issues of burnout as well as the practical issues of survival without income. Also discuss how the patients are still paying the hospital (as much as $100 for a saline bag) and that charging even one dollar per patient would lead to comfortable self sufficiency without harming anyone.
--[X] Discus why you don't want to be a hero or affiliate with any of the hero organization, so at least someone knows
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Greg Veder's Videogame gave you the inspiration to try crafting your own summoned being. You'll try to create a creature of pure mana, and see what happens if you call Thoth's Will to inhabit it in place of your own. With some restrictions, of course.
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Design a healing golem to help panacea. Make a core based on you and use materials that should allow a combination of side effects that cancel out.
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[x][Project] Something Else (Using stone synthesis on metals causes them to become Defined Ores of said metal. Maybe we could use this ore to forge a weapon of magic, an Excalibur if you will? Attempt to learn metal working to make weapon before the next endbringer battle. We can give it to a worthy champion then.)
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[x][Project] Something Else (Using stone synthesis on metals causes them to become Defined Ores of said metal. Maybe we could use this ore to forge a weapon of magic, an Excalibur if you will? Attempt to learn metal working to make weapons, both for yourself and others. Your magic has it's offensive purposes, but it needs concentration to replicate without the items on hand. Best to have something more... direct on hand.)
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Design a healing golem to help panacea. Make a core based on you and use materials that should allow a combination of side effects that cancel out.
--[X] Follow the instructions in the below spoiler for step by step instructions on exactly how to do it:
[X][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[X][Project] Something Else (Time to upgrade in STYLE. etc. etc.)
--[X] Create a Duplicate of our armor, and use Thaum > [Plant + skin] > Water to make an arcane mana and apply large amounts of it to the whole armor while chanting:
[X][Mana] Extract (using Nickel or Boron magic) and test thaumic mana on the following elements if possible: Sodium (salt), Chlorine (also salt), Argon (gas in fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs), Phosphorous (matches), Americium (in smoke detector), Nitrogen (ammonia/fertilizer), Hydrogen (water), Oxygen (water), Fluorine (toothpaste), Potassium (banana), Magnesium (fire starters, some fertilizers), Arsenic (insecticides, potentially in rice), Rhodium, Palladium (both in catalytic converters), Antimony (batteries), Osmium (some ballpoint pen tips), Mercury (old thermometer, fluorescent lamp)
[X][Mana] See if any other kind of pattern affects mana. Lay out a pentagram of dust and ignite it to see if the shape results in anything different than igniting a pile on its own.
[X][Mana] Experiment with Arcane > Sulfur. Can magically created heat enhance the result or is non-magic heat better? Test how well hellfire (thaumic sulfur) can covert materials to hellish materials. Also, check for side effects of hellish materials and void the results if necessary.
[X][Mana] Using an insect, test the ability of a large dose of Thaum > Graphite > Copper to revert extreme whole-body mortal wounds if applied fast enough. This could potentially be the basis of an "extra life" device if it works.
[X][Mana] Something Else (Test the Arcane Spell "Tick, Tock, start the clock/ One, two, three, four, are you going to wait a second more? / Five, six, seven, eight, You might be running a little late. / With my blade of living silver / From your prison I do deliver." Looking at the results of prior spells we should also consider trying it WITH a blade made of wood and silver. We could make a wooden knife and wrap a silver necklace around it. The idea is to get a spell which can disrupt time magic. Grey Bubbles aside, we may need to deal with time magic related accidents at some point, or worse, an enemy with time abilities. Time opposes itself, and silver has gravity powers. So a blade charged with spacetime bending gravity that disrupts time prisons?)
[X][Mana] Something Else (Cast "Black Rose Whip Born of the River Lethe" and apply the resulting magic to silicon. Would it create a memory effecting stone? Try this with "Blaze Shotgun" as well, attuning the mana to the silicon before it can execute its delayed commands.)
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Void Spark" > Graphite)
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Void Spark" > Silicon)
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Void Spark" > Stone)
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Void Spark" + "Graviton Exchanger Mutation")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Light of the Vampire")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Bioelectricity")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Cobold Gleam")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Lichen")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Ballarini di Luna")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Warm Glow")
-[X][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain ("Bioluminescence" + "Ancestral Memory")
[X][Mana] Something Else (See what happens if we take an image using Vital Sight, and then use Vital Mimicry to copy that vitality into something else. Either by passing the image form one mass of mana to the other, or applying the magic to paper as a medium. Can we record scans of something's Vitality in this way?)
[X][Mana] Mana - Test Materials (Gallium, Bird, Stone) - Attuning Gallium Mana with Thaum results in mana that causes things to change form. Attuning an object with Bird Mana results in an object that acts to our will, in a bird-like form. These 2 could be very useful in conjunction.
[X][Mana] Use Arcane > Air and listen to the language which comes out of it. Try to speak it using no mana, Thaum mana, and Arcane mana. Use a linguistics book to see if you can decipher it.
-[X][Mana] Study it for Phonems
[X][Alchemy] Try using Cadmium mana on magically created substances, i.e. wardstone, timeshift rock (and maybe arcane sulfur created materials?). Try using Cadmium and/or Beryllium to imbue your armor with the self-repair properties of timeshift rock.
[X][Alchemy] Try using Cadmium mana on magically created substances, i.e. wardstone, timeshift rock. ITry using Cadmium and/or Beryllium to imbue your armor with the self-repair properties of timeshift rock.
[X][Alchemy] You have (Seven) Alchemy Tests Remaining.
-[X][Alchemy] Create a Duplicate of our armor, and VERY CAREFULY Let it soak in a bucket of "Reroll".
-[X][Alchemy] Use "Simplfy" on a damaged mini TV being powered by "Malfunction". Can we restore the TV to something approximating working order in this manner?
[X][Alchemy] You have (Seven) Alchemy Tests Remaining.
-[X][Alchemy] Create a Duplicate of our armor, and VERY CAREFULY Let it soak in a bucket of "Reroll".
[X][Learn] Other parahumans appear to be entirely non-magical or at least don't use the same energy I can detect. All Powers apparently have "thoughts" and a Corona Pollentia serving as a relay, yet I am the only known outlier regarding magic. My Power can tell me all the nuances of most Thaumic mana, yet struggles with the more metaphorically inclined Arcane. So: Powers are alive enough to have thoughts, my Power struggles with understanding forms of magic that I can (roughly) grasp, and it can adapt to new discoveries I have made (i.e. my development of a phonetic eidetic memory). Do all parahuman abilities come from magic on the other side of the relay, and my Power is broken/leaking it over? Or did my Power give me magic to learn from me?
[x][Learn] Is there anything else I've learned?
-[x][Learn] (when you used alchemy to transfer worth from a watch to a knife, the took on aspects of clockwork. So worth is more conceptual than material.)
[x][Learn] Is there anything else I've learned?
-[X][Learn] (Write-in) list in spoiler:
-[x][Learn] (when you used alchemy to transfer worth from a watch to a knife, the took on aspects of clockwork. So worth is more conceptual than material.)
-[x][Learn] "The relationship between magic and reality is bijective."
--[X][Learn] something about a "Fourier Transform"?
-[X][Learn] Other parahumans appear to be entirely non-magical or at least don't use the same energy I can detect. All Powers apparently have "thoughts" and a Corona Pollentia serving as a relay, yet I am the only known outlier regarding magic. My Power can tell me all the nuances of most Thaumic mana, yet struggles with the more metaphorically inclined Arcane. So: Powers are alive enough to have thoughts, my Power struggles with understanding forms of magic that I can (roughly) grasp, and it can adapt to new discoveries I have made (i.e. my development of a phonetic eidetic memory). Do all parahuman abilities come from magic on the other side of the relay, and my Power is broken/leaking it over? Or did my Power give me magic to learn from me?
-[x][Learn] The effects of having a soul and mana on a living animal: "twice as much neural activity as a normal bird, its muscles are around twice as dense, and its vocal cords show signs of extreme strain and overuse"
-[x][Learn] magic seems to think that "Simple", "less valuable", and "lower tech level" are basically the same thing
-[x][Learn] Apparently, wood and stone, and Plant and Beast, are in some way "unstable" when forced together
First, I summoned up my magic. Cast Iron Magic formed solid bones, while a mass of Diamond Mana wrapped around it, forming muscles. Tendril Mana snaked between these, forming the tendons, and finally, the almost invisible shade of Skin Magic swept over the frame of magic I was weaving together.
Feathers of even more Cast Iron Mana mixed with Keratin Mana finished the process, and I looked on at my creation. It wasn't too dissimilar to a bird. I had at least tried to make it look like one, though the wings shifted in unnatural ways, and the beak looked like a solid mask, sharp and deadly, with pinpricks of eye mana hidden behind them.
Inside the bird, I pushed even more varied types of magic. Keratin, to manipulate gravity, Lead, to manipulate mass, Iron, to manipulate forces, and finally, I uttered the phonems Tash, Shhshh, and Kerchunk, making the mana's feathers become impossibly downy and fine, before sealing the magic from further verbal commanding.
I reached out to the mass of mana, which had grown larger than myself by quite a bit, bolstering it with even more solid mana. I had learned earlier that mana decayed the slowest when it was prevented from attuning to material. Solid and Liquid Magics, then, lasted the longest.
Finally, in the privacy of my own mind, I thought to my creation out loud, speaking plainly in words that formed no spell.
"Obey Thoth. Show her what you would see, and do as she would do. You are Thoth, and I summon you," I whisper, sharpening my focus.
The mass of magic shifts, slowly and ponderously at first, before its massive wings begin to bend and spread wide.
The loud grunt it releases is deep enough that I can feel it in my chest, and I feel Thoth's meagre will take hold of the summoned creature, a false body inhabited by a very smart pigeon's intentions.
Sweating at the massive expenditure of magic, I summon up a tiny bit more, just some Keratin mana to help me leap up onto Thoth.
As I settle down on the back of the summon, I see sparkles of magic drifting off the bird where we make contact. Mana attunements causing the summon to bleed off energy over time. Future summons, I imagine, would need to somehow correct this flaw, but for right now, it would do just fine.
Making sure to keep my magic ready in case I need to slow my fall, I grab a handful of false-feathers and compel the summon forward. Thoth offers little grumbling, but with how big they are, the aerodynamics are all off, and it takes too long for my liking until Thoth finally lets out some quick flaps, pushing us into the air and off of the building roof I had gotten up onto to test out my new theory.
After gliding down to a pay-phone to inform the PRT that I would be flying around in a giant glowing bird made out of energy, I thought about my two destinations.
I had two things I wanted to do, and today seemed like a good day to do them.
So, I would either be visiting Panacea again, or visiting a prison to ask the men who broke my former best friend what exactly they did.
With barely a tug on Thoth's feathers, I turned towards the hospital. I felt I'd need Panacea's endless optimism and pep to get me ready for what I planned on doing.
I was tempted to land on the roof, but without knowing if it was illegal or not, I pulled around to the parking lot, Thoth slowly gliding to a stop.
As I slid off the bird's back, she gazed down at the other pigeons lining the streets with a regal gaze, as if demanding the attention of the peasant birds.
I distracted myself from bird-matters-of-state to turn and greet Amy and Vicky, who were running over with wide, shocked expressions.
"Oh god, what the fuck did you do," Amy asks, looking a bit disgruntled at Vicky's cavalier attitude towards the summoned beast, scratching Thoth under the chin with a look of amazement as the summon shed a little mist of attuned magic at the scritchy-scratching. Thoth looked down imperiously at the superheroine, but made no moves to stop her ministrations.
"It's not a real bird, don't worry. It's pure mana. I just slaved the energy to my pet bird back home, kinda like a remote-control car."
Panacea's brow furrows, and she touches it softly. Her hand presses more firmly into the bird's fluff a moment later and she looks almost... Disappointed.
"Good. General rule of thumb, but Tinkers violating the square-cube law tend to get a little nudge to their threat rating. Though, that applies to most capes," she says, looking at me with the confidence borne of someone who looked it up on the internet.
I was curious if I had a threat rating, but considering all I had done so far is heal, make armor, and now make a big fake bird, I wondered if they even had threat ratings for me. I didn't think I seemed that dangerous, at least, considering the sort of things I had been holding back.
Vicky let out an 'oof' as Thoth picked her up in their talons, plopping her on the bird's back, before trudging over to the pigeons nearby, picking them up one by one and dumping them up onto her back as well.
I looked on with amusement at Vicky, who looked much less pleased to have actual pigeons being in contact with her, several gentle pecks from Thoth demanding she give the other birds scritches as well.
I saw a crowd starting to form, Vicky assuring everyone that Thoth wasn't dangerous with what seemed to me like a stunning amount of confidence in that fact.
Nervously, I glanced to Amy, who gave me a wry look. "We better get inside before someone calls the local news. The only thing nastier than open heart surgery is paparazzi in my humble opinion," she jokes, grabbing my wrist and half-dragging me inside.
It didn't take long before we were in the groove of clearing out ICU Wards, something Panacea had been all too willing to help me get in the practice of.
She seemed really relieved at me taking the time to help her "Pro-Bono", and, as we finished the last round of healing before we would have to move on to another hospital, I decided to broach a topic that had been burning in my mind since learning about Amy.
I took a deep breath to gird myself for the backlash I was expecting to get from her.
"Hey, Amy?" I asked, and she seemed to sense something unpleasant to come.
"Yeah? What is it Sage?" she responded.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 16, 2
Here goes nothing. "I think you're not getting paid as much as you deserve. I grew up around a lot of union stuff, and it bothers me a lot that you're only getting minimum wage."
She raises one eyebrow, snorting a bit. "What? You think I should get paid as much as a surgeon for poking people? That'd go over real well, I'm sure."
I shake my head. "No, I won't say that, but I do think you deserve more than seven-fifty an hour. You know how much hospitals cost, right?" I ask.
"They charge patients a hundred bucks just for a bag of saline, and even something like a tylenol can cost as much as ten bucks, even per-pill if they give it to you in a hospital."
Amy shrugs. "I know that. You think I should charge a hundred bucks to heal someone? Insurance companies really don't like covering Parahuman healing."
I shake my head again. "I think you should charge a dollar. One measly dollar to heal someone," I say, and she looks dumbfounded enough for me to explain.
"I did the math, Amy. You heal about three-hundred people a day, working almost all day every day. If you got even one dollar per person, you'd be making almost thirty-dollars an hour. More even. I'm not even saying you should be rich, but..."
I throw my hands up a bit helplessly. "Even a dollar per person would have you saving up for a comfortable retirement. Or even if you don't retire, it's money that nobody would miss, and up to a certain point, financial stability directly correlates with mental wellbeing," I offer, staring directly at her with open hands.
She crosses her arms as Vicky walks over, disappointed that Thoth disappeared after only a few hours. The consequence of ever-decaying mana.
"What's going on?" Vicky asks, noticing the terse atmosphere.
"Sage here thinks that there's something wrong with my 'mental-wellbeing' and that I should charge a dollar per use of my power," Amy says a bit petulantly.
Vicky bites her lip for a moment, glancing away nervously. "And you... you're sure she doesn't have a point? What exactly did you say, Sage?" she asks, looking at me and away from Amy's slightly betrayed look.
"I said that it's wrong for Panacea to be working insane overtime hours for minimum wage. If she charged a dollar per person she healed, she'd be making three-hundred dollars or so per day. That's a really livable wage, and even if the patients had to pay it, it would barely be a drop in the bucket for most. The hospital would probably end up taking the fee anyway, since it's good publicity," I explain carefully, trying to keep my tone easy and not offensive.
Amy grits her teeth a bit, while Vicky just nods as if it makes total sense.
"You couldn't get coffee that cheap most places Amy. I kinda agree with most of that," Vicky hesitantly admits.
"And the crack at my mental health?" Amy says, dreading whatever answer I'm about to give her.
I just shrug. "Burnout is a real thing. If you don't take time off and unwind after you work, you're just going to end up hating your job, or it'll drive you crazy, or make you sick. People aren't built to just keep trucking along forever like that."
"I just think, as much as you want to heal others, it would really suck if five or ten years down the line, you just get fed up with it and go do something else because you weren't taking care of yourself enough," I explain carefully.
Amy's skin turns pale at this, and she looks ill at my words.
"Amy?" Vicky asks, holding out a hand to her shoulder with concern in her expression.
"I'll think about it," Amy responds.
"What?" Vicky mutters, confused for a second.
"I'm saying I'll think about it!" she repeats, louder, before going quiet.
"I'll think about it, alright?" she says to the two of us with something like resignation.
The silence stretches on until long after it would be awkward, before finally, Panacea chuckles bitterly.
"It's not like I could do something else anyway, even if I wanted to quit healing. I've only got the one power I can use," she mutters.
[][Something Else] (Write-in?)
[][Something Else] Stand there like a useless mook in response.
After that final revelation, Amy asks to go home early, repeating that she would think about what I said, and I'm bid goodbye by the pair as they fly off into the distance.
I head home, preparing for tomorrow night's plans.
When I get back, I make my way into the lab. My project was a success. Using magic and willpower, I brought forth a creature of pure magic, and had Thoth temporarily inhabit it.
I couldn't exactly tell if Thoth remembered anything that the summon had done, but, speaking practically, it didn't matter all that much. I no longer needed to bio-engineer monsters to use them, so long as I didn't need them to last forever.
There were other tests to do, and my success had bolstered my confidence.
First, I wanted to see if Cadmium Magic could work on synthesized materials. I knew it could steal the value from an item, but the question was, could it do so to a magical item?
The results were... Displeasing.
As it turns out, I had forgotten one of the most critical parts of Cadmium Magic, namely, that it didn't intentionally steal material from an object, it stole craftsmanship. The synthetic chunks of rock that I had made had no craftsmanship for it to steal, no concepts that the magic was capable of properly interacting with.
I felt dissatisfied with this experiment, and furthermore, felt ready to test it again, once I had come up with some good items to produce, and thusly steal from.
Next, I produced a duplicate of my armor using a cantrip. The new set of armor quite literally grew from my current one, plants and moss and wood sprouting from it and shaping itself into the new suit.
I threw up a barrier of thick Skin Mana, which I was able to figure out could protect me from alchemy, if I kept myself mindful of it. I suspected that there were a lot of magics that could potentially harness alchemy in a more stable manner. Purity Magics, Barrier Magics. Hell, Alchemy Mana took the form of a liquid, so I imagine even physical magics could play a role in managing it.
Either way, I had a safe wall of magic between me and the basin I filled with wild alchemical power, and, from there, I slowly placed the suit of armor in the water with the Reroll Magic. The magic that my power warned me was unfathomably dangerous, owing to whatever it did to concepts it affected. I could feel my skin magic blurring out the sight of the basin, protecting me from the churning flashes of light and color that swirled around inside of it.
My magic protecting me from the very sight of something for the danger the very information presented reminded me uncomfortably of concepts that I had first learned about in Lovecraft, of all things...
A golem slowly lowered the armor in, piece by piece, before backing away and waiting.
Only once I had sensed the absolute last of the magic fade did I approach the basin, looking at what was inside.
As soon as I glanced inside, the basin exploded, water spewing everywhere and revealing a floating set of Robes made of moss. It was embroidered with both sage and wheat, and it also had a wooden staff paired with it, a gnarled, swirled stick covered with little holes, three of which were filled with nails made of wood, wheat, porcelein and sage.
In addition to the hood of the robe, it also seemed to come with long, knee-high boots, gloves, and a massive wizardly hat. In place of a mask, the hat and hood seemed to be enchanted, the shadows they cast being pitch black and all-encompassing, something caused by tiny pieces of highly magical porcelain in the shape of rings.
Studying them, they seemed to somehow be emitting a powerful porcelain magic enchantment, one which transmuted light into flakes that were themselves dissolved into mana for fuel.
In short, the basin of alchemical water had 'Rerolled' my fanciful plant-based plate armor and cloak into a robe and wizard hat, complete with a staff begging to be studded with attunement materials.
Folding up the robes, but keeping the staff, I took a broken mini-TV and put it in the basin of water, a requirement for using Malfunction Mana with the greatest ease. Instantly, the broken glass screen began to fizzle and flash with static once I applied Malfunction Magic to it, the noise coming out of it sounding like someone was tuning a radio, shifting from station to station with distortions between. Clips of video occasionally forced their way onto the screen.
1d20 vs 1d20 = 14, 4
Waving my staff a bit for dramatic effect, I summoned up a mass of Indium Mana, attempting to Simplify the Malfunction Mana into something else.
Sure enough, Malfunction Mana did simplify, and the TV stopped freaking out, settling on blank static.
Reaching into the water, I fiddled with the channels and even tried plugging a Betamax player into it. After a bit of effort, the shattered underwater screen began playing a rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger. There was a huge bar of static cutting across the screen, the screen was shattered and missing bits of glass, and the sound quite literally sounded like it was coming from underwater, but ignoring all of that, the TV actually worked. Well, it barely worked, anyway.
It also made uncomfortable sparks, but by god it worked. Look out tinkers, I might just be able to use your broken junk, as long as I have it dunked underwater and have a supply of magic handy.
With that, I moved on to another test that I had been curious about. Cadmium Magic.
It could steal craftsmanship and value, and with a lot of effort, I could rip that out of it and put it elsewhere, but... What if I didn't?
I summoned up a mass of magic, stealing the craftsmanship from a cast-iron frying pan I had, turning it into a cheap glass frying pan and then applying that mana to a piece of silicon.
The result was a bit stunning, as my power informed me that the result would naturally transform into a pan made of a golden metal called "Hoardfiller", if applied to Silicon.
Applying it, I was rewarded with an incredibly lightweight golden pan that felt like it weighed almost nothing at all.
Next, I did the same thing, this time stealing the craftsmanship from a combat knife, which turned it into a cheap-looking katana for some reason.
...
Ignoring that, I then spoke at the mass of Cadmium Magic. "Poof!" I uttered, gesturing dramatically.
The mana condensed down into a single point, and the result was...
I leaned down to where the result had fallen on the ground, squinting to try and make it out.
A bit of mana helpfully identified the result as a teeny tiny grain of pure gold, in the exact shape of a high-quality combat knife.
I got the strong suspicion that the grain was, at best, worth as much as the combat knife, much to my dismay.
Though, the fact that I could make gold at all was interesting, considering how much synthesis seemed to dislike making anything that wasn't just silicon in disguise.
I picked up the tiny combat knife, careful not to cut myself, and set it in the box with mom's jewelry, turning my attention to other things.
I decided to test if the pattern of magic had any effect on it, and, lacking any better ideas, I drew a pentagram with some chalk and ignited the dust with magic.
The mana rapidly burned down through the lines, branching out from the point to turn the entirety of the chalk dust to mana, and when it did...
Well, it didn't do anything too insane, but the purple mana did do something unusual, leaning forwards from the pentagram and trailing out in lines that grew more complex, jerking back and forth in a zigzag crisscrossing pattern that looked as though it were trying to repeat the pentagram's path. I felt the mana grow firmer as it continued to do this, the inertia of the pattern making the mana want to continue moving in that way.
The shape of the pentagram itself also seemed to lend some sort of new effect to the mana, as the mana began to finally stabilize, its jerky zig-zag curling around into a jagged geometric field that felt somewhat protective.
I tested other runes as well, and before long, I felt the same gut feelings that phonems had originally given me, as if there was something deeper to the way mana of all kinds had inertia of patterns.
When I made a pentagram with a circle around it and lit it from all five points with magic, the mana crashed into itself at the five inner points and at five equidistant points around the circle, rebounding off of itself and forming a massive spirogram that curled up into the air, weaving a dome-like barrier of spiral purple liquid that I felt a strong sense of protection from.
And then I got a massive headache, dispersing the magic.
"What the hell!" I shouted, gripping my head at the familiar pain of my power bitching for some ungodly reason.
I released a surge of mana instinctively, and the headache quickly faded into nothing.
Deciding that it isn't science until I've done it twice, I tried a few other tests with chalk runes.
Igniting one end of a line made the mana burn through the chalk, and then keep extending outwards in a line.
Igniting a curved line did the same thing, but the mana curved as the line did.
A golden spiral that I ignited at the center spiraled outwards, and as it did, I could feel it moving faster and faster, the mana literally spreading out into nothing in mere moments after it reached its 'Top Speed' until the mana was dispersed into the ambiance.
I drew another golden spiral, and got ready to ignite the outside edge, but when I did, I felt the overwhelming premonition that it would explode if I tried it before I was ready.
Wiping it out, I tried other shapes.
Triangles ignited from one point resulted in jagged forward beams that trailed mist and dust, while igniting a triangle from the middle of a side resulted in two crisscrossing beams that whistled loudly as they left behind embers.
A triangle with a line through it, ignited from the triangle's side resulted in a beam of whistling fire, from the left point of the triangle, just fire, from the right, just whistling.
From the triangle's point that was crossed by the line, a straight beam of dust and mist, from the left triangle's side in the middle, a beam of dust, and from the right side's midpoint, mist.
A square ignited from any point simply resulted in repeating squares in the opposite direction, like a grid, and when intersected with a line, the squares each emitted lines of mana from the same angle.
Even this made me feel like I was... well, I was drawing shapes, rather than writing runes. There was more to be learned, power-induced headaches or not. The patterns that mana strived to retain had some sort of meaning.
I was suddenly all too aware that even the mana flowing through my blood had a pattern baked into it through repetition. Namely, that it continued flowing through my veins in exactly the same manner, even if I was cut. The mana at first flows because it is driven, but later, because it drives.
And when patterns cross, they don't just average, but rather, they extrapolate and combine. A spiral and a line don't create a curved line, the average of the two vectors, they create a corkscrew, the interpretation of both a spiral and a straight line.
But how did the mere movements of magic change their properties? Their elements?
I could feel the headache growing, even with mana enhancement, and decided to turn to a different subject until it faded.
"Dad! Can you come down here?!" I yelled politely, and after about a minute, he trudged down.
"Yeah? What did you need?" he asks, smiling.
"Well, I'm testing something, and I need you to study a book for me," I explain.
He looks a bit confused. "What book?" he responds.
"Any book, it doesn't matter. I just need to study you studying it. We could use one of my math books, if that works."
He looks supremely confused, but with a shrug, we drag out my thick math textbook and I watch him leaf through it, going forward and back pages in a slightly distracted manner.
As he does so, I watch him, listening carefully to the rustle of pages, and the ruffling of his shirt sleeves.
"Shush? No, that's not right," I mutter.
"What?" he responds.
I wave him off. "Nothing, ignore me," I say, watching intently as he stares hard at a page.
"...Ch-ch-ch-ch and Frip. Those sound about right for now," I think, pleased with myself.
"Alright, that's enough. Thanks for the help, dad," I explain.
"Why did you need to uh, 'Study me studying'?" he asks, supremely confused.
I giggle. "It helps with learning magic words. Not sure why," I shrug, unwilling to explain that I was basically bullshitting and relying on gut feelings, and it somehow kept giving me really good results, compared to just randomly spurting out words and noises.
Having finished my tests, I return to sit in my room, my armor hung neatly in my closet.
Tomorrow, I'll be going to the prison currently holding four of the Azn Bad Boyz's low-ranking goons. The ones who weren't broken out already.
I'd be asking them what happened the night they attacked Emma Barnes and her father.
The only question is... How?
[][Prison] Visit during the day. Sage would like to ask them about some events as part of a private investigation.
[][Prison] Visit during the night. I'll control a summoned being to act as my mouthpiece. Mana is so cleverly useful when it comes to slipping through solid material, after all.
[][Prison] Write-In
The next day, I strapped a piece of Vibrato Stone to my throat, in just the right place to distort my voice ever so slightly with the whistling of flutes. Like someone had mixed up a midi of flutes with someone's voice.
It was another important aspect of trying to shore up my fraying secret identity, something I would need for what I might be doing soon.
21 Research Refunded, 10 Research Gained.
Mirror
Sii
Symmitrize
Mana becomes symetrical across a line of symmetry based on its distance from the user facing away from them.
Mirror
Shoom
Reflect
Mana becomes silvery and reflects light.
Circuit Board Shard
Chkchkik
Spark
Mana emits powerful sparks.
Circuit Board Shard
Dttzztdzt
Circuitmatch
Mana shifts in shape, transforming into the circuit-board pattern closest to what it currently is
Circuit Board Shard
Dit
Spellcheck
Mana interprets electricity, reading the number of electrical signals recieved within the same timeframe as a phonem for it to repeat among the phonems already applied to it.
Abacus
Tac
Count
Mana grows a wood-like growth, shaped like the arabic number of phonems that have been applied to it upon using this phonem.
Abacus
Chik
Turing's Trial
Mana repeats whichever phonem was used at the same point in the spell as whatever number physically appears on the mana.
Abacus
Trtrtrtrtr
Antinumeric
Numbers present in a mass of mana cease to be.
Dad-Student Experiment
Ch-ch-ch-ch
Undo Half
Mana affected by this mana undoes half of the phonems that have been applied to it thus far, rounding up.
This phonem was discovered by studying dad study a book intently.
Dad-Student Experiment
Frip
Index
Mana affected by this mana will begin to repeat the first phonem cast on it when a new phonem is applied to it, counting upwards as new phonems are applied. I.E, the first phonem after this one is followed by the first phonem overall, the second is followed by the second, and so on.
This phonem was discovered by studying dad study a book intently.
Clock-and-Dominoes Experiment
Dingcacklackle
Timer
After this phonem is uttered, mana begins counting upwards the current time, phonems applied to it do not apply until that long after the phonem "Cacklelacklecathack" is uttered.
This phonem was discovered by studying an alarm clock going off to trigger dominoes.
Clock-and-Dominoes Experiment
Ringtatatata
Domino Effect
Mana affected by this phonem will apply its phonems to mana it comes into contact with, but only once "Cacklelacklecathack" is uttered.
This phonem was discovered by studying an alarm clock going off to trigger dominoes.
True > Cast Iron
Gerousiastis
[Living Force]
The user hardens in response to physical trauma. The more cast iron is equipped, the more rapidly the effect can activate.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Lead
Juggernaut
[Weight]
The user has more mass, the more lead is equipped.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
True > Paper
Author-Mastery
[Writable]
The user's writing speed and density increase, the more paper they have equipped.
The user gains the ability to enter works of still-media. Cantrips are unlocked (Requires a Project to test)
True > Stone
Auto-Sling
[Create Rocks]
Rocks appear in the user's hand when they desire one. More equipped stone results in larger rocks appearing.
Set Bonus undiscovered.
School
Attunement Chain
Shorthand
Type
Effects
Other
Thaum > Calcium > Iodine
Dressing
Liquid
This mana restores a corpse to a pristine state when applied to one.
Thaum > Brain > Silicon
Psychocite Creation
Synthesis
This mana produces Psychocite when applied to Silicon
Psychocite: This magical pink metal is capable of housing thoughts inside of itself, acting as a mental repository. It carries mental pollution from the brain used to create it, thoughts, memories and ideas from that brain being present.
Transmute > Brain > Silicon > Cloth
Psychocite Cloth Transmutation
Transmutation
This mana produces Psychocite Cloth when applied to Cloth
This bubble-gum pink cloth possesses the qualities of Psychocite.
Iodine
Thaum > Bone > Iodine
Strengthened Bones
Liquid
This mana hardens and heals bones on contact.
Surrounding tissues lose some of their strength temporarily.
Iodine
Thaum > Blood > Iodine
Bloodflow
Liquid
This mana restores bloodflow to whatever it is applied to.
This mana can cause temporary euphoria and lightheadedness in a target.
Iodine
Thaum > Plant > Iodine
Plant Cure
Liquid
This mana heals plants that it is applied to.
Iodine
Thaum > Iodine > Iodine
Magical Aid
Liquid
This mana lends itself to other sources of healing, empowering them.
Silicon
Thaum > Iodine > Silicon
Recovery Gel Creation
Synthesis
This mana produces Recovery Gel when applied to Silicon
Recovery Gel: This thick gel heals wounds it is applied to, transforming into a silicone-like rubber in the process.
Silicon
Thaum > Cobalt > Silicon
Pandore Creation
Synthesis
This mana produces Pandore when applied to Silicon.
This dull, stone like material grows in strength when competing against something powerful, and wanes when forced to compete with things weaker than itself. When pushed to its limits, the material can undergo a permenant transformation into something unknown. As it grows stronger, it begins to turn into a blue, otherworldly metal.
Manganese
Thaum > Diamond > Manganese
Nature of Spring
Ray
This mana can reduce the negative traits of a living thing. This mana is at its strongest during the spring.
Targets afflicted by this magic are less intelligent than they normally would be while affected, up to a limit.
Manganese
Thaum > Iodine > Manganese
Doctor's Orders
Ray
This mana reduces things that would impede healing, sapping the target's strength, pushing disease away from their wounds, and reducing their temperature.
Manganese
Thaum > Meat > Manganese
Subtle Weakening
Ray
This mana reduces the strength of a target in subtle ways, lowering the strain on them.
Cobalt
Thaum > Brain > Cobalt
Rally
Ray
This mana weakens the fears of nearby individuals, while strengthening their hopes.
Cobalt
Thaum > Iron > Cobalt
Equalize Forces
Ray
This mana equalizes the forces of a target it is applied to, counteracting them.
Cobalt
Thaum > Cobalt > Cobalt
Good and Evil
Ray
This mana seeks out the strongest and weakest points of a conflict, strengthening one while weakening the other.
Cobalt
Thaum > Lead > Cobalt
Equalize Weights
Ray
This mana equalizes the weights of two targets.
Chromium
Thaum > Chromium > Chromium
Scour
Ray
This mana scours a target's surface until it is utterly clean. Organic targets are heavily damaged by this.
Zirconium
Thaum > Zirconium > Zirconium
Uncanny
Ray
This mana makes an illusion of a target which is almost perfect, in such a way as to instil fear.
Manganese
Thaum > Manganese > Manganese
Alloy
Ray
This mana reduces the negative traits of a target by attempting to make them positive.
Lithium
Thaum > Lithium > Lithium
Emerald Cultivation
Ray
This mana produces intense, dense earth essence, bleeding it into its surroundings in an effort to transform materials into magically charged earth-elemental counterparts.
Hybrid
(Thaum > Zirconium) + (Arcane > Silicon)
False Idol
Hybrid
This mana produces a physical illusion of a target, which, when destroyed, releases a brief pulse of fear.
Thaum > Zirconium > Water > Silicon
Illusion Masque
Elemental Ray
This mana produces a physical illusion around a target, which shifts and behaves as it aught to. Spiritually sensitive individuals will feel a sense of unease, if they believe it to be real.
Beryllium
Thaum > Cadmium > Beryllium
Novel Theft
Alchemical Liquid
This mana removes from a target unusual concepts that it has to distinguish itself.
Cobalt
Arcane > Cobalt
Last Chance
Ray
This mana influences all within its area of effect, preventing the conclusion of a conflict until there exists no other possibilities.
Zirconium
Arcane > Zirconium
Mimic
Ray
This mana makes a target imitate another. Mannequins move of their own accord, clothing puffs into the shapes of people, and mirrors watch their target carefully, prepared to emulate them.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Manganese
Arcane > Manganese
Manganese Blessing
Ray
This mana supports an object it is applied to, while it lasts.
Lithium
Arcane > Lithium
Current
Elemental Ray
This mana pushes water it flows through, producing a current.
Chromium
Arcane > Chromium
Cleanse
Ray
This mana purifies what it is applied to.
Failed to Properly Scan. Most details unknown.
Mirror
Thaum > Mirror
Light Screen
Elemental Ray
This mana both absorbs and releases light, creating an opaque glowing effect.
Stone
Thaum > Gallium > Bird > Stone
Avian Mutandis Creation
Synthesis
This mana creates Avian Mutandis when applied to stone.
Avian Mutandis: This stone contains the power of a bird, and can emit a pulse of mutagenic magic to give a creature bird-like traits, or even transform a creature into a bird.
Stone
Thaum > Bird > Gallium > Stone
Polly-morphic Rock Creation
Synthesis
This mana creates Polly-morphic Rock when applied to stone.
Polly-morphic Rock: This stone will break and reshape itself into the shape of a bird, even if melted, ground up, or scattered apart, pulling itself together into a sufficiently bird-like shape.
Stone
[Thaum > Bird] + [Thaum > Gallium] > Stone
Avian Golemstone Creation
Synthesis
This mana creates Avian Golemstone when applied to stone.
Avian Golemstone: This stone emits a polymorphic magic, pulling together materials around itself to form a bird golem.
Graphite
Void Spark > Graphite
Void Flesh
Liquid
This mana mutates an organism to excrete waste directly into oblivion.
Side effects include an organism being exposed to the void between worlds.
Stone
Void Spark > Stone
Riftsharpened Voidrock Creation
Synthesis
This mana produces Riftsharpened Voidrock when applied to Stone
Riftsharpened Voidrock: This substance interacts with space physically. Objects made of it can tear holes into the void between worlds, or prop them open, among other possible uses.
Silicon
Void Spark > Silicon
Voidperil Creation
Synthesis
This mana produces Voidperil when applied to Silicon
Voidperil: This material functions as a direct gateway into the void between worlds, so long as it is magically charged.
Hybrid
Void Spark + Graviton Exchanger Mutation
Riftgecko Mutation
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism, making them pump gravitons intersecting them directly into the void to negate the effects of gravity.
Side effects include an organism being exposed to the void between worlds.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Light of the Vampire
Vampire's Curse
Hybrid
This mana transforms an organism into a type of vampire, mutating their bodies to control and absorb vitality in order to create bloody sunlight.
Vampires created by this magic have their powers amplified in the light of the sun, until they spiral out of control and immolate.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Bioelectricity
Spark Mutagen
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism to build up a charge of electricity, which it uses to emit bright flashes of light via electrical arcs.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Cobold Gleam
Chameleon Mutation
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism, such that it emits blurring light to disguise its location.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Lichen
Feast of Lights Mutation
Hybrid
This mana mutates simple organisms, transforming them into UV-Light emitting symbiotes which can bond with a plant's leaves.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Ballarini di Luna
Lunar Mutation
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism, giving it bright silvery nodules which absorb moonlight and can distribute it at their will.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Warm Glow
Soluminescence Mutation
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism, making it emit thermal radiation and light.
Hybrid
Bioluminescence + Ancestral Memory
Ancestral Mimicry
Hybrid
This mana mutates an organism, making it emit a form of light which takes on forms based on the subject's ancestral blood-memory.
Seance Powder
Thaum > Seance Powder
Spirit Fog
Synthesis
This mana creates Spirit Fog when applied to Seance Powder and the moisture it draws.
Spirit Fog: This fog, in the correct situation, can draw on the dead, and be inhabited by them.
Stonedew
Thaum > Stonedew
Stonedew Creation 2
Synthesis
This mana creates Stonedew when applied to Stonedew
Stonedew: A stormy grey liquid. It tastes strongly of minerals.
Sunrock
Thaum > Sunrock
Lesser Sunlight
Synthesis
This mana creates a weak, flickering sunlight.
Timeshift Crystal
Thaum > Timeshift Crystal
Time Bubble
Synthesis
This mana creates a membrane between differing times it crosses between.
Blackened Soil
Thaum > Blackened Soil
Black Ash Creation
Synthesis
This mana creates black ashes when applied to Blackened Soil.
Sodium
Thaum > Sodium
Energize
Ray
This mana transforms itself into an incoherent form of whatever energy it comes in contact with.
Chloride
Thaum > Chloride
Disintegrate
Ray
This mana rips apart whatever it comes in contact with, violently reducing it to constituent parts.
Toxic Gas Hazard
Argon
Thaum > Argon
Occult Mana
Wave
This mana responds to quiet passing through it, both its effects and behaviors can be changed by it.
The effects and behaviors of this mana are Heavy and Slothful.
Americium
Thaum > Americium
Free
Ray
This mana breaks restrictions it comes in contact with, for better or worse.
Nitrogen
Thaum > Nitrogen
Magical Mana
Wave
This mana inhabits the waves it is present near. It responds to shifts in the waves it inhabits, changing its effects.
The effects and behaviors of this mana are Boring.
Hydrogen
Thaum > Hydrogen
Aetheric Mana
Wave
This mana reacts solely to shockwaves and the most violent of vibrations, changing effects to suit them.
The effects of this mana are Anihilating.
Oxygen
Thaum > Oxygen
Breath
Wave
This mana amplifies the noise of what it inhabits.
Fluorine
Thaum > Fluorine
Druid's Blood
Liquid
Fluorine Mana rips apart artificial objects, and strips unnatural substances from natural objects
Potassium
Thaum > Potassium
Verdant
Liquid
This mana draws nature and plants into the area it is applied to.
Magnesium
Thaum > Magnesium
Life of the Party
Ray
This mana increases the chaos present in the host of a success it is applied to. Organic targets grow wild and unruly, while inorganic targets become unstable and loud, up to a point.
Arsenic
Thaum > Arsenic
Needlepoint
Liquid (Solid)
This mana takes the form of hollow straw-colored needles. The mana can selectively draw things into, push things out of, and keep things inside or outside of the hollows.
Rhodium
Thaum > Rhodium
Colossus Blood
Liquid
This mana produces an artificial vitality, driving an object into motion as its form demands.
Palladium
Thaum > Palladium
Dark Power
Ray
This mana fills a target with a corrupt energy, amplifying its strength.
Osmium
Thaum > Osmium
Inertion
Ray
This mana is slow to attune, and resistant to both change and changing other things.
This material takes roughly thirty minutes for mana to actively be attuned to it.
Mercury
Thaum > Mercury
Perform Alchemy
Alchemical Liquid (Miasma)
This mana transforms causality from literal to conceptual. Literal Actions will have Conceptual Reactions on the world within its effects. The stronger the mana, the more powerful the Alchemy.
WARNING: Extreme Conceptual Risk. Chemical Reactions noted to trigger Alchemy. Physical Reactions noted to trigger Alchemy. Mental Reactions noted to trigger Alchemy. Spiritual Actions noted to trigger Alchemy. Magical Actions noted to trigger Alchemy. Example Threat: Metal and Air combining into Metal Air in place of or in addition to an Oxide Layer.
Fume Hood strongly recommended. Protective Magic strongly recommended. Restrictive Magic strongly recommended. Tailored Vessel for use of this magic strongly recommended.
Indum
Thaum > Beryllium > Indium
Dehybridize
Alchemical Ray
This mana afflicts any magic it comes in contact with, splitting it into stable, simplistic parts.
Warning: Conceptual Effect. Unrestricted usage presents high risk of unwanted consequences.
Iodine
Thaum > Brain > Iodine
Memory Game
Liquid
This mana recovers damaged memories.
Potassium Iodide
Thaum > Potassium Iodide
Natural Reaction
Liquid
This mana increases the intelligence of plants.
Cactus Iron
Thaum > Cactus Iron
Prison Thorns
Liquid (Solid)
This mana takes the form of solid thorns.
I might end up doing more tests next chapter, but I might not, so be prepared for next time!
If you have a favorite test result that you really want to see in-story, tell me! I might be willing to squeeze it in.
"Night Taylor, don't stay up too late, alright?" dad asks, waving as he climbs the stairs with a yawn, closing the door and leaving me in the sun-lamp lit laboratory.
As soon as the door closes, I fish out a cell phone from my junk pile, as well as several broken 'gundam' toys and some screws. I had to distract myself from the truly embarrassing thing I had done earlier.
Why on earth did I think hugging Amy was a good idea!? Vicky just kept laughing, and it was the most awkward thing I had ever done.
I tried to play it off, muttering something about how she could come to my lab and play with my plants, but that just made things even worse!
I resolved to never think about that ever again, and prayed that Vicky would eventually stop cracking horrible plant jokes to remind us about it.
Thus, to serve my goal of forgetting that that ever happened, I turned to my... Well, I couldn't pretend that it wasn't illegal.
I turned my attention to my "Illegal, but good-intentioned plan".
The plan I had was fairly simple. I would disguise my power as a tinkertech device, shaping an illusion made of pure mana to look like a heavily modified, scrapped together phone.
To do that, it would help to have a model to go off of, for creating it. To that end, I gutted the phone, using superglue, bread-ties, and screws to cobble together something that looked vaguely like a tinkertech robotic bug, with circuit boards and toy-legs for its limbs, and the phone's casing for its body.
Feeling enlightened by this little art project, I also dug up an LED and superglued it to the front to make something like an "eye" for it.
Setting the model on the table, I began weaving together magic, attempting to create a summon in its image.
False Idol and Mimic Magic came together, tapping the image of the phonebug and shifting around, while Eye, Ear, and Brain Magic were deftly woven in as well. A mass of Eldritch Relay Mana plugged into the center of the construct allowed me to begin emitting some mana from within the construct, helping to solidify the illusion.
Finally, I attempted to take control of it like Thoth had taken control of my earlier summon. I felt a prod, and accepted my own call.
I felt tired, and then, utterly asleep.
I woke up seeing through my creation, one big eye staring out across the seemingly massive lab.
"That's... Not right?" I wondered, the entire experience feeling surreal and dreamlike.
A little plastic arm thrust itself in front of my 'face', inarticulate fingers twitching a bit as if to demonstrate the change in form.
When I tried to make the summon walk, it didn't feel like walking, the various legs moving of their own accord to propel me wherever I wanted it to be, and when I spoke, my voice came out in a reedy, high pitched tone that had undertones of whistling distorting it.
I hadn't realized that this method I had come up with, this method of bringing a person's will into mana to inhabit, would require that the individual be unconscious to do it.
I suppose it made some sense. The human mind wasn't meant to inhabit two bodies at once, I'm pretty sure, and I had intentionally pushed my desire to inhabit the magic into it, rather than merely forcing it to obey my orders.
I was like a ghost, or some kind of specter, and I could tell that the only reason I was touching the table and held down by gravity was because I wanted the summon to look and act like a physical object.
With a thought, the legs folded into the Illusion Phonebug, and floated up through the roof, Liquid Mana and Ray Mana slowly and laboriously slipping between the material of the roof to avoid attuning to it and decaying more rapidly.
With one last look at my sleeping form, I bid my summon to fly up into the air on a jet of magic shunted from the Eldritch Relay Mana, and push forwards towards the Bay State Correctional Center.
The BSCC was one of the largest prisons in Massechusits, talks had been in the works to try building other prisons to handle the overpopulated center, but after the Boston Games, the place was instead expanded, and furthermore, upgraded to temporarily detain some parahumans as well.
The internet searches I had done helped to clarify that this place's main advantages were its sheer size, and the high security it boasted. It was also located all the way in Norfolk, which even with my tiny flying magic phone, still took precious hours that had the summon decaying over time, held pristine only by influxes of pure thaumic mana that I had forced to bolster the decaying illusion.
I looked around the facility, even as late as it was, the place was still all barbed-wire and roving spotlights, making the place look more like what Hollywood would think a prison looks like.
Noticing the cameras, I had my summon emit more thaumic mana from the Eldritch Relay inside of it, infusing it into a puddle of water nearby and casting a spell that I hoped wouldn't be affected by the heavy voice modulation on my summoned form.
"I cannot be heard, I cannot be seen
I am but a shadow, I am but a dream
Darkness surround me, cloak me in night
Cover me, hide me, protect me from sight."
The arcane mana began to darken, and then, disappeared entirely, a trait it shared with my summon when I wrapped the cloak of mana around myself. I noticed that, while it made the top of my summon look like it was nothing but ground below, it also made the bottom of the summon look like the night sky.
If someone saw my summon fly over them, it might still catch me out, if they saw a hole of night sky passing across the ceiling...
I crawled past the various cameras and around sensors, occasionally risking the summon being attuned further to slip through some of the concrete walls or mesh fences, until finally, I was in the prison properly.
I knew who I was looking for, and, looking through prison records, I had an idea of where they were as well. It didn't take long for me to find my first victim. Miguel Chen, born to Isabella Perez and Chen Zu (Zu Chen?). Twenty five years old, arrested for assault, sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but might get out in ten on parole.
My bug slipped into the room silently, watching the man flip through a car magazine.
"Miguel Chen, I'm here to ask you some questions. It would serve you well to answer them," I say, startling the prisoner out of his reading.
He shoots upwards, feet lifting onto the ground and onto his cot. "What the hell? Fuck, Who the fuck is this," he hisses, staring at the illusory phone like it's about to blow up or something.
He says something in Chinese that I don't understand, so I ignore it and press on.
"I'm... An interested party. I want you to tell me everything about the crime you committed Summer of two-thousand and nine. The one that got you put in here."
I try to lower the reedy voice of my summon to something more threatening, but I'm not sure if it comes across correctly. "The more you tell me, the better off you will be."
1d20 vs 1d20 = 10, 2
His face turns pale. "Fuck! Alright, don't hurt me, I'll tell you everything," he says.
"It was just an initiation. We had this bitch, some two-bit whore who wanted to get promoted to full membership," he begins.
"So we set some stuff up, trapped a guy's car and took his kid out, we'd get her to do some fucked up shit to the kid to make sure she was fucked up enough to do real jobs," he starts, and I press him.
"That's not good enough. I need to know exactly what happened. What did you tell the kid? What was the woman's name, and what would she have done?"
He somehow goes even paler. "Look, why do you want to know this shit? It was just an initiation gone wrong, alright? A cape showed up, Shadow Stalker or something, the cape's name was Shadow Stalker!" he exclaims.
A guard walks past, rapping on the bars with a baton. "What the fuck are you shouting about?" he demands.
Miguel holds his hands up, looking down to where my summon had turned utterly invisible. "Sorry, just pissed about something. Letting off steam?" he says hastily.
The guard glares. "Shut the fuck up, go to sleep or something," he responds, walking off.
Miguel lets out a sigh of relief, which catches in his throat when he realizes that my summon uncloaked on his shoulder. I whisper more quietly now, frustrated with his little diversion.
"I already know who the fucking cape was. Tell me what I want to know, and do it now," I whisper. "Quietly," I insist after a moment's thought.
"I didn't say shit, alright? The guy's name was Lao. Real piece of work. He pinned the kid down and told her to pick between an eye, her nose, her mouth, or both of her ears, said he'd have Yan go to town on em with a knife," he whispers, shaking with fright that I can't quite place the source of.
I pause at this, and he takes the opportunity to speak. "You, you're that tinker that Lung's been investigating, aren't you? Is this some kind of job for him?" he mutters quietly.
I don't answer, hopping off of Miguel's shoulder and crawling out of the cell.
Before I leave, I let him notice me wrapping the invisibility around my summon once again. "Keep this between us. If you don't, you won't have time to worry about Lung," I threaten, disappearing and moving on to the other prisoners, just to make sure their retelling matches.
They did, and I had my summon sink directly into the ground before dispersing, the raw magic synthesizing a variety of exotic materials in the dirt that would turn into pure silica before the sun rose.
I woke up with a gasp, jerking away and grasping at the things I had said and done while inhabiting my summon before the memories could fade.
I had my suspicions, but now I knew as much as someone could know without having been there personally.
While I was at Summer Camp, Emma had been threatened with mutilation by a bunch of ABB goons, who were only stopped by the appearance of Shadow Stalker, the same person who attacked me on the night that I was investigating Emma's house.
After that summer, she regressed into complete sociopathy, hanging out with Sophia and Maddison, and being hell bent on ruining my life and destroying our friendship.
I knew the what now, but not the why. Why did Shadow Stalker help Emma? Why did her traumatic experience make her hate me? And the how. How was Sophia involved in all of this? Just a random bitch who Emma befriended over the summer? Someone who shared her newfound psychotic behavior?
How did she avoid getting put into counseling, or therapy?
New questions, but the same way of getting them. I would have to find the right people, and ask the right questions.
Emma avoided her face being harmed, but now I see that something about that night had damaged her mind, broke it in a way that contributed to what she is today.
Do I feel sorry for her now? Pity?
As I pull myself up and slump down against a wall, sitting down on the grassy ground, I can't tell what this makes me feel. Only one emotion registers properly out of the revelations.
Resolve.
When I wake up the next day, I decide to complete a few final tests, mostly dealing with the Corona Pollentia. The mana I attuned to it seemed to deal with powers, and the thoughts that that part of the brain had.
Attuning mana from the rest of my brain to it seemed to do nothing I couldn't already do. It simply turned the thoughts in my mind into orders for my power. Mana could come out in particular shapes or with certain properties based on what I was thinking, but it wasn't anything I couldn't already do with mana.
Attuning Eye Mana to it, however...
[Destination]
[Agreement]
For Queen Administrator, it was a tale as old as time.
The beauty of geometry, of vector calculation across noneuclidian spaces.
Yes, even as a shard not specialized for it, Queen Administrator knew her way around beautiful, wonderful physical and mathematical patterns.
And, at long last, her host had managed to find something using this stupid magic shit that finally soured even that, with their discovery of runes.
Sure enough, their Mass-and-Energy Scanner threw a bitchfit, demanding more resources be put into investigating this new interaction of magic, since now it could apparently move its way into anomalous behaviors, because of course, it could.
Another emergency choice had to be made.
[][EMERGENCY] Expend 50 Research to create yet another mental library for the host. t this point, Queen Administrator is sick of new things cropping up in this library, and will just lump anything and Everything into it. (Taylor will gain Eidetic Memory: S. She can now remember anything perfectly, so long as she has tested its effects on mana. This includes movements, shapes, sounds, atomic attunement configurations, and alchemy recipes.)
[][EMERGENCY] The Research Tax is increased to 15 per month. Taylor will be left to her own devices for the study of Mana Movement Patterns and runes, and will do so of her own accord.
[][EMERGENCY] 5 Research is spent. Taylor will be discouraged from testing further runes and mana patterns until the end of this month, and the other two options will be added to the Research Shop.
Decision made, Queen Administrator noticed their host trying and failing to take a peek at their thoughts.
It was so tempting, oh so tempting, to send the host a packet detailing their exact feelings on their dumb little human's problem-solving-and-causing. That temptation was only held at bay by the fact that proper communication required sending enough energy in the process to scour away most life in a several mile radius.
Carefully, gently, Queen Administrator wove together a novel data packet, forging it from all their feelings on their host's continued broadening of magic's annoying infinite-ness.
They sent it to themselves, lacking a cohort to vent to, but sending was still cathartic, billions upon billions of megajoules of energy, all pumped into one simplistic multidimensional concept.
[Fuck You Host]
I couldn't bear to stare at it for longer than a few moments, the shining image of shifting crystals crashing into one another like two stormfronts of diamonds and flesh colliding left blurry imprints on my vision as I blinked them away, dismissing the magic.
I noticed, among the endless storm of light and energy, a little envelope fluttering around in the maelstrom, the conceptual form of magic that I recognized as a summoning request from my own experiences with the magic.
I didn't understand. I didn't understand what I saw, or why I was completely confident that the little magical note was made of mana that was neither mine nor my power's.
Why was a vision born of my power's thoughts like that? Was it like an error? The result of trying to plug a sound cable into a TV's video input? Trying to visualize something that wasn't physically there?
Or was it something else? Was that a true vision of something, a vision of something in my Corona Pollentia?
And if it was, why did my power have that thought in it? That thought of a little white letter made of pure magical intentions, with the words "Come visit anytime!" written on it.
Why did my power have the thought of magic that wasn't mine? Wasn't I the only human being to have it?
First week of June Plans:
[][Daily Activities] What sort of things will you do during the day?
-[][Daily Activities] Hang out with Greg, instead of merely tolerating his presence.
-[][Daily Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[][Daily Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know everything that happened. Now it's time to confront Emma and find out why. Why did she do this to you? (Write-In Plan) (Taylor is not yet fully ready for this)
-[][Daily Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Daily Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Cape Activities] What will you do as Sage?
-[][Cape Activities] Go out healing with Panacea for the fourth straight week in a row.
-[][Cape Activities] You'll spend your time investigating.
--[][Cape Activities] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know everything that happened. Now it's time to start tracking down Shadow Stalker and find out the truth. Why did they do this to you?
-[][Cape Activities] Set up your Legal Second-Identity (Write-In Plan)
-[][Cape Activities] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
-[][Cape Activities] Something Else (Write-In)
[][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
-[][Project] Something Else (Write-In)
-[][Project] Alchemy consumes your mind. You'll discard a project this week. (If this vote wins, up to ten Write-in [][Alchemy] experiments will be processed this turn instead of one major project.)
[][Alchemy] You have (Three) Alchemy Tests Remaining.
-[][Alchemy] Write-In.
[][Mana] Mana-Test Materials (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Test a piece of equipment's True Attunement (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Phonem's effect (Write-In)
-[][Mana] Study a target for Phomens (Write-In)
[][Mana] Test a Transmutation (Choose a Synthesis Mana and a Non-Silicate Target)
[][Mana] Something Else (Write-In)
Taylor's resolve has grown. Her proud soul has become stronger as she approaches the Truth.
Stats
Research: 57
A good start.
Overall Health: 14
You're as strong as a healthy child. If that child had the power of magic from birth, that is.
Overall Magical Power: 14
You are a skilled Channeler, using raw Willpower and attuned mana to plow your way through problems. You dabble in other magics that both enhance and detract from your raw mana channeling, such as Wizardry, Alchemy, and Runecraft.
Abilities
Magical Soul: C
Rating: Trump ???
Your soul emits magic. The stronger your soul, the more powerful your magic. Your resolve to discover the truth behind your best friend and worst enemy has strengthened your soul.
Magical Body: F
Rating: ???
Your body contains magic, your soul empowering your body without your direct intervention.
Magical Power: B
Rating: Trump ???
You are a parahuman with the power to create this anomalous energy known as "Mana", at will. Once per month, you may boost your Magical Power ranking to A for one scene.
Boosted for One Month.
Composition Detection: S
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to detect the exact composition of materials. So long as you apply mana to them, that is. Fairly Niche.
Eidetic Memory: A
Rating: Thinker ???
You have a parahuman ability to never forget what mana attunements you have learned, their applications, and their nuances. You will also never forget any word or noise you test on mana, or the effects it has.
